In Search of Good Times

As UFC has made plenty of strides in the public consciousness over the past few years – to the point where people like my New York Post colleague George Willis and Yahoo! Sports’ Kevin Iole cover it like they do boxing – I’ve held firm in my opposition to sitting down and watching a fight card. While I’m a fan of boxing, that isn’t the reason I haven’t been able to get behind it.

More than anything else, I just couldn’t bring myself to watch it. It seemed less like a sport than like a regulated version of Tyler Durden’s brawls throughout Fight Club. The idea of two guys getting into a cage and, in essence, fighting to the death like Roman gladiators just never appealed to me.

But that changed Saturday night. With UFC 100 being a major landmark for the company, and with it being promoted all across the media landscape, including on SportsCenter, I figured if there ever was a time for me to take a shot on mixed martial arts, this was it.

So I called up my friend Chris, who I knew had at least watched some fights in the past, and we and his friend Christian (a big MMA fan) met up at a local bar to take in the scene. Amidst pitchers of beer and some appetizers, I had a notebook and pen ready, and kept a running log of the events as they unfolded.

9:15-10:00 – With the fight card set to kick off at 10 p.m., we agreed to meet early in order to make sure we landed decent seats at the bar, which Chris said tended to get pretty packed for these fights. Because of that we showed up around 9:15 and grabbed some decent seats. The impressive, and strange, thing about the place was the fact that there were at least 15 televisions in the place, and not one of them was even tuned in to the Mets game. All of them had the UFC 100 preview show on. All I could think was that, “these guys aren’t messing around.”

The other thing that I couldn’t stop thinking about was how terrible the preview show was. You would think, with this being a seminal moment for UFC, that they would have a  full, hour-long preview show. Maybe there would be an explanation of how the sport works, or perhaps some detail about its history.

Instead of anything interesting like that, we just saw a 10-minute clip repeated six times, as each of the three main fights were previewed, and UFC president Dana White and commentator (and, more importantly, Fear Factor host) Joe Rogan gave their thoughts on each fighter. Considering all of the hype that was put into the event throughout the last week or so, it was pretty disappointing to see them put together such a poor pre-fight show. Given all I had heard about Dana White, I was pretty disappointed.

10:00-10:10 – We’ve finally gotten to the beginning of the show, much to the excitement of the rapidly filling bar. Not only is there the main room that we are in where the bar is (and the 15-plus televisions), but there also is another room with a huge big-screen TV. It’s hard to believe just how many people like this stuff – though I also have to say that at least half of the people in the bar right now look like they are frequent steroid users.

Anyway, now we’ve gotten to the beginning of the show, and we’ve got a winning team of announcers – Michael Goldberg and Joe Rogan! After looking up Goldberg, I saw he was a former hockey play-by-play man, including for the Detroit Red Wings. I have to admit, though, that he didn’t seem that impressive Saturday night.

As for Rogan, I can’t quite figure out how a comedian ever got involved as the color commentator for something like this (though I guess Dennis Miller did have a short stint on Monday Night Football). I saw on his Wikipedia page that he’s got a brown belt in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, but that alone doesn’t seem like it should be enough to qualify him.

While Goldberg has been calling this one of the greatest cards in the history of UFC (not that I can argue with him) for the past 10 minutes, Rogan looks like he just walked into the Mandalay Bay after going on a three day gambling/drinking bender throughout Las Vegas. This should be interesting …

10:10-10:15 – Goldberg and Rogan quickly lay out all of the rules, which mostly consisted of Goldberg saying the rules and Rogan intermittently shouting. They also showed some highlights, which essentially make this look like organized chaos. Are there any rules at all?

First fight: Alan Belcher vs. Yoshihiro Akinaya

Now we’re finally on to the first fight of the night, with Arkansas native Alan Belcher up against undefeated Japanese fighter Yoshihiro Akinaya. Belcher, the underdog, comes into the ring first with a weird entrance – little to no fanfare, no light shows, nothing. Then, when he gets into the ring, one of his three skills that is displayed is being “well-conditioned.” Nothing strikes fear into your opponent like being in good shape! Oh, wait … everyone is in good shape? Whoops!

Then Akinaya comes in, and he instantly becomes the guy that I want to win. First of all, he goes through a whole routine on the way into the ring, including some bowing, that is pretty cool. On top of that, his entrance music is an Andrea Bocelli rendition of Con te Partito, as my Italian friend Chris is quick to point out to me. How cool is that?

The fight is a back-and-forth affair that ends up being a split decision win for Akinaya. This seemed fairly straight forward to me – it seemed like Akinaya took Belcher down a bunch of times in the second and third rounds, while Belcher did little. Joe Rogan, however was stunned.

“I just don’t understand, Mike,” was all he could get out. He then followed that up with, “You can see Belcher thinks he should have won that fight.” Well, there’s a stunner. A guy lost a close decision, but thought he should win! We’ve never seen that before. Thankfully, this isn’t the last we’ll hear from Joe Rogan.

But the fight itself was quickly overshadowed by Belcher and the tattoo on his right arm. We immediately were drawn to it, because it was a giant human head. But after looking at it for a few minutes, we realized that it wasn’t just any human head, but in fact a caricature of Muhammad Ali … except that it wasn’t Ali, but Johnny Cash. I kid you not.

More than anything else, this tattoo dominated the discussion throughout the rest of the an incredibly boring fight. I was thinking that if this was the way this goes, then it’s hard for me to understand why people are so interested in it. There were, however, two other highlights from the fight:

Belcher gave Akinaya a swift kick in the balls early in the first round, sending a wave of moans throughout the bar. There was some talk that this was a dirty play on the telecast, but I thought it was pretty smart, myself.

Belcher also just kept spinning in a circle and trying to roundhouse kick Akinaya. After a while, I think I would have gotten dizzy … I was impressed Belcher was able to stay on his feet.

Second fight: Dan Henderson vs. Michael Bisping

After a very boring opening fight, I was hoping for something better from the fight between Henderson and Bisping. We found out in the opening that Henderson and Bisping had been rival coaches on UFC’s reality show, The Ultimate Fighter on Spike, and that they had a real animosity toward one another.

Like the first fight, I was immediately attracted to cheer for Bisping. He seemed like a more interesting guy (Henderson seemed smug and boring, while Bisping seemed cocky but entertaining), and I also liked the fact that he had a cauliflower ear. He also came into the ring with a classic song, “Song 2” by Blur.

As soon as the fight started, though, it became obvious who was going to win. Bisping was practically running away from Henderson the entire fight, while Henderson continued to stalk him around and around in circles. As the first round turned into the second, I began to talk with Chris about how boring the night had been so far, and why people were ever interested in this stuff.

And then, out of nowhere, we quickly found out why people were interested in it. Henderson connected with one thunderous right hand, immediately knocking Bisping out, and then jumped in the air and landed a sickening flying punch to Bisping’s face while he was out cold on the ground before the referee could grab him and officially end the fight.

It was similar to a heavyweight boxing match, in which one punch can stop the fight and bring people to their feet. But given the way MMA seemed to work, I didn’t think that kind of thing happened that often. It was impressive. We also had another golden moment from Joe Rogan, when he observed that Bisping “is still out cold, Mike,” as the camera was focused on the clearly unconscious fighter.

I must say, Henderson also won me over after the fight, when he told the crowd to come drink with him. I was impressed.

Third fight: Georges St. Pierre vs. Thiago Alves

In the days leading up to the event, I kept hearing how St. Pierre was the guy who could really become a star. After watching him Saturday night, I can see why. Simply put, the guy has it all figured out.

I won’t even talk about the fight, because he dominated Alves, who everyone who had any idea what was happening, including Christian, told me was a really good fighter who could beat him. From the looks of things, if that guy had a good chance to beat him, then no one is going to be knocking him off anytime soon.

But more than that, St. Pierre had a real star quality to him. Unlike Belcher with his “well-conditioned” skill, St. Pierre is a black belt martial artist. Now that is a skill that I can understand. But it wasn’t just his skill in the ring that makes him seem like he’s ready to be a main-stream guy, but the way he handled himself.

He easily had the coolest entrance of the night – even more so than the night’s biggest (in both figurative and literal terms), Brock Lesnar. He’s French Canadian (and who doesn’t like a good Canadian?), and he’s very well-spoken and photogenic. Dana White has himself a gold mine with him. I just wonder if they’ll find someone who can compete with him.

Final fight: Frank Mir vs. Brock Lesnar

Finally. This was the moment everyone had been waiting for – the chance to see Lesnar, an enormous, hulking brute of a man, take on Frank Mir, the only man to defeat him in the cage. The oddsmakers heavily favored Lesnar, as Mir’s victory had come in Lesnar’s first UFC match when he made a “rookie mistake” (or, at least, that’s how it was explained to me), and Mir was able to make him submit.

And really, upon seeing both men enter the ring, it seemed hard to believe that Lesnar wouldn’t win. Although both men were listed at 6-foot-3, Lesnar looked about twice as big as his opponent. He also had the much cooler entrance, entering the ring to “Enter Sandman” and looking like he could smash through a brick wall on his way to the ring if he needed to. In another great moment from Rogan, the master of understatements, he had this line: “Brock Lesnar is a freak of nature … he is a gigantic man.” Because we constantly see 6-foot-3, 265-pound rock-hard people walking around, Joe … the hits just keep on coming!
Once the fight started, it was clear he was going to make Mir feel like he was thrown through a brick wall. Lesnar put on a brutal performance, bludgeoning Mir in the face repeatedly until it looked like a package of raw meat. Through the first round, and the beginning of the second, there was little doubt about the eventual outcome of the fight – only when it would be finished.

But then it was finished, with the referee pulling Lesnar off of Mir and calling the fight … and that’s when the fun began.

Lesnar looked like a caged bull, stomping around the ring screaming in the immediate aftermath. After Mir managed to stumble to his feet, clearly still dizzy, Lesnar then quickly ran over and began screaming in his face, only to further cement the fact that he had avenged his only loss.

As the crowd realized he lost the fight and began to boo him, he began running around the ring giving everyone the double-fingered salute in an incredibly classy move. He then went over to the ringside camera and began screaming into it like a rabid dog, with lips frothing and his mouthpiece flying out.

But easily the highlight of the night came from Joe Rogan’s post-fight interview with Lesnar. Now I have to give Rogan credit; he may not be a great color analyst, in my opinion, but the guy has some courage to get in the ring when a guy like Lesnar is rampaging like he was. That’s not something many people would sign up for.

But here is the play-by-play for Lesnar’s interview:

Rogan: “Brock, what did you think of the fight?”
Lesnar (to crowd): “I love it! Keep booing, keep booing!”
Rogan: “Brock, how does it feel to avenge your previous loss to Mir?”
Lesnar: “Frank Mir had a horseshoe up his ass … I told him that a year ago. Well, I pulled it out, and beat him over the head with it!”
Rogan: “How does it feel to be the undisputed heavyweight champion?”
Lesnar: “I love it! I’m drinking a cooler full of Coors Light, Coors Light because Bud Light (UFC’s primary sponsor) won’t pay me anything! Hell, and maybe I’ll even get on top of my wife.”

Lesnar, in a word, was captivating. White had a long conversation with him after the fight was over, and Lesnar came out and apologized for his comments (though I’m sure White was mainly concerned with the ruffled feathers with his primary sponsor). But for all of the people criticizing UFC for Lesnar’s antics, and saying that they will drive people away from the sport, I couldn’t disagree more.

I may not be totally converted to the UFC cause, but I was entertained for the evening, and I will be back again at some point – likely the next time Lesnar is on the card. Dana White and Co. escaped from UFC 100 with no serious injuries and a lot of publicity. This train isn’t slowing down anytime soon, and after seeing it for myself Saturday night, it’s something that I’ll check out again.

The reason may be more for the antics of Lesnar and others than for the fights themselves, but for UFC, that doesn’t matter. It’s all about the PPV buys for them, and there’s little doubt in my mind that after Saturday’s show, there’s only going to be more of them in the coming months and years. UFC is here to stay. Now we have to get used to it.