UFC!

Before I can go one bit further on this blog, I must tell you about going to the fight.

We ended up getting tickets to the UFC fight a few weeks ago.  It really was a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and none of us will ever forget it.

First of all, it's not one fight.  I think the night we went, there were about 15 fights.  They start with the preliminary, no-name fights and work up to the big one.  The big one on the night we went was American Ronda Rousey vs Brazilian Bethe Correia.  There was a lot of pre-fight smack talking from Correia.  Originally the Brazilians were behind her as the "hometown girl", but then she ran her mouth too much and made remarks about Rousey's father's death by suicide and the Brazilians turned in favor of Rousey.  But more on that fight in a minute.

We got there in time to watch the whole shooting match, starting with the no-name people who are fighting whenever they can to try and get better and bigger billing.  There were only a handful of us in the arena for most of those fights.  People "in the know" apparently know enough to wait to arrive because this night drags on for ages.  And when I say ages, I'm talking like ice ages.  We arrived before the first fight at 8pm and we did not leave the arena until 3am when the last fight was over.  When I say it's a long night, I mean it.  I normally would have been on at least my second REM sleep cycle by the time we left the place.

The Storys before the fights began

(As an aside, I wasn't 100% sure what one wears to the fight.  What I learned is that, at least in Rio, you can pretty much wear anything you want to a fight, but the higher your heels, the better.)

So we watched fight after fight, ate some food, drank some drinks and really enjoyed ourselves.  Our new US UFC VP friend took excellent care of us and made sure we met some fighters who weren't fighting that night (including current UFC lightweight champion Rafael dos Anjos), introduced us to UFC President Dana White, and got us into a VIP area.

We even ran into our old friend Fabricio Werdum (remember he's the current UFC heavyweight champion), who treated us like long-lost friends.

Seriously, even had we not watched any fights, it might have been the best night ever.

Mac watching the action with the two Marines who went with us

And then, the coolest, most awesome, best thing in the whole world happened.  The UFC VP found us and said he needed to take Mac with him for awhile.  Now this arena was pumping by then and it was dark so I was a teensy bit nervous, but Mac knew where we were seated so I knew he could find us if he got lost.

The next thing we knew, Mac was walking down on the floor of the arena straight to the cage.

And then he sat down right by the cage next to the judges, put headphones on so he could listen to the announcer call the fight, and watched the action.

Right. By. The. Cage.  

Are you kidding me?

This will surely go down as one of the top 10 highlights of this kid's life in Rio.  Shoot, this may go down as one of the top 10 highlights of this kid's entire childhood.

Shot of one of the big screens when the camera was angled to where Mac was sitting.  Do you see him?

What about now?  He had the best seat in the house.

More of the fight without Mac in the screen

So he watched American Patrick Cummins (in the white shorts above) up close and personal beat Rafael Cavalcante in the 3rd round via TKO.  Seriously super-cool stuff.

Here's a little video Mac took while cage-side.  Look at that face!

When the fight ended, our UFC friend introduced Mac to the fight judges and that baldheaded guy who calls all the fights (he used to be on Fear Factor and I apparently am the only human being in the world who doesn't know who this man is).  Then all of a sudden the loudspeaker came on and they announced that our friend Fabricio was walking out on the floor.  He walked right over with his entourage to where Mac and the UFC VP were standing and treated him like an old friend.  The coolness factor of this kid's life was carved in stone with that one.

Mac in a mob scene meet-and-greet!

I have no idea who Mac is talking to in this photo, but talking away he is!

This picture is fuzzy but Mac is sort of in the center in a gray polo (about an inch from the cage on a laptop screen), having his photo taken with Fabricio Werdum.  

Mac and the UFC VP walking back to us (this is the same corridor Ronda Rousey used to come out for her fight)

We watched the rest of the nights, including the amazing 34 seconds that it took Rousey to knock Correia's lights out.  The crowd was CUH-RAZY nuts with excitement.  It was very exhilarating.

This place was pulsating!

 

Ronda Rousey entering the mat

... and still the undefeated UFC Bantamweight champion of the world

We left the arena, totally exhausted but completely blown away by the whole experience.  I cannot tell you how much fun we had.

The next afternoon we had a 5pm early dinner date with an old State Department colleague of Jimmy's who was in Brazil with his wife and adult daughter.  We were early for the reservation but we were going to enter the restaurant and wait for them.  As Jimmy was speaking with the hostess, I noticed a man walking out of the restaurant, who I was sure was a fighter from the night before.  I got Jimmy's attention quickly and told him that I thought this guy was a UFC guy.  I then confirmed with the restaurant's valets that he was a fighter and off we went.  Of course, Jimmy remembered exactly who he was by name because he was the American Mac had watched fight cage-side!  

In an earlier blog I wrote that these guys were so nice when I expected them to be mean and eat children's and puppy's organs.  Well I told this guy and his handlers this and that I'd become a convert of UFC after meeting Fabricio, Tomas and the UFC VP because everyone was so stinking nice.  They told us that a) they're really nice people and b) 88% of all US UFC fighters have a college degree.  In fact, Patrick Cummins himself earned a fine arts degree in ceramics from Penn State while he was wrestling there. 

I'm sorry, come again?

(For the record, I did some stalking and he did have a little jail stint because of a college prank, but I'm chalking that up to youthful indiscretion.  He's a totally nice guy now.) 

Of course, I asked if we could take a photo, and they happily obliged.  

Photo #1

Then his sports agent told him to remove the glasses for the next photo.

Ouch!  Classic case of "but you should see the other guy"  (There was one other photo taken with the glasses off where Jimmy's eyes are opened but this is a better photo of my new BFF Pat so I included this one instead.)

The UFC trilogy is thus ended by UFC's newest and biggest booster!