Ok I’ll be upfront, I’ve never watched a single second Ultimate Fighter – one of the fastest growing sports in America, but one of the cool things about being me is I get the opportunity to experience new things. So when the fine folks at UFC reached out and said “Hey now, we’re going to be in your neck of the woods, would you like to come and check us out?” My response was, “Why the heck not?” So I trudged down (or up?) to the Patriot Center to see what the fuss was all about. Let me tell you, the folks at UFC put on a heck of a fun show. From the way they treated press to the entertainment/production values in the arena everything was first class.
The 9-card show was headlined by #2 contender Chad Mendes taking on number 4 ranked Ricardo Lamas. As someone who attends WWE matches at least 2 or 3 times a year, I have to say UFC blows it away in terms of keeping things lively. The WWE crowd is dead in between matches due to the lack of music or any entertainment. UFC keeps the energy and party atmosphere up with music pumped into the stadium throughout the 3-hour event.
The weirdest fight of the night had to be when number 15 ranked Al Iaquinta defeated the 14th ranked Jorge Masvidal in a wild finish. After getting his eye busted open in the first round, most people in the audience just assumed the match was over. But the judges awarded the victory to Iaquinta largely because Masvidal spent the last two rounds dancing around and avoiding actually, you know, fighting. Iaquinta was still salty at getting booed by the crowd and wore his heart on his sleeve during the post event presser.
“That’s what I trained for in the gym, a tough first round. I wanted to show my toughness as the fight went on and if that fight goes another round, he’s done! I got extremely frustrated when the crowd was booing me. I do this for them, I looked in the crowd and a guy was giving me the middle finger – it really got to me because I do this for the fans, I don’t know if they were booing me or the decision but that hurt. I do this for the cheers. The division needs to know that I’m here now, I can hang with the best in the world.”
After taking a year off to get healthy 13th ranked Julianna Pena made had a dream return to the ring as she defeated Milana Dudieva in the first round by a knock out.
“That felt great, that felt amazing, I feel like we rewound time back to the The Ultimate Fighter finale. I’m always nervous; that’s the way it always is and I think that’s the way it’s always going to be. My game plan was to get on top, stay on top and get the finish but I was surprised at how quick I was able to finish her. I waited for the perfect moment to unwind my punches and it worked out great. I need to take a minute, put my toes in the sand and work on my tan then I’ll be ready to get back in there.”
Pena was overcome with emotion during the press conference after she found out all the winners on the card was going to receive a $50,000 bonus. Saying “The money was a blessing, especially after being a way for so long.”
Other results included Camp Springs, MD native Ron Stallings defeating Justin Jones by decision in his UFC debut, number 8 ranked Liz Carmouche, in her first match back in over a year, defeating Lauren Murphy by unanimous decision.
Even as a layman attending their first fight it seemed like most of the results of the evening seemed pretty obvious in retrospect. I enjoyed my first UFC event – how could I not, I got treated to a nice breakfast, and will certainly attend future events.
After defeating Robbie Peralta, Clay Guida gave a proper shout out to all wrestlers and said that UFC wouldn’t exist if it wasn’t for wrestlers and then called out President Obama saying he should “Come down to Fairfax and check out the fastest growing sport in America.”