UFC Fight Night

Scott and I are big MMA/UFC fans. When I first met Scott I was not into it at all. In fact, I think a month before I met Scott one of my friends at the time invited me to go to some amateur fights at Yankee Lake and I absolutely refused. I didn't see any appeal to it what so ever. However, when Scott and I first starting dating we decided to do this thing where we would alternate weeks and each week we had to watch an episode of a TV show that the other one enjoyed. My choice to make Scott watch was Buffy. His choice was The Ultimate Fighter Season 1. I tried really hard not to like it. I really did! However, I was drawn in and became a very casual fan. That has grown to the point where I have MMA apps on my phone to track what's going on and sometimes I tell Scott things before he had read the story. I also have favorite referees and favorite fighters. (I also have some that I really don't like. Hello Diaz brothers).

Well, for Christmas this year I planned on surprising Scott with a trip to Vegas for UFC Fan Expo and the fights that weekend. However, I decided to run the idea by Scott, because the logistics of keeping it a surprise were too much. Once I let him in on my plans and we discussed it further, we decided that it didn't make sense financially right now (It would cost more than our Disney trip did). I was pretty bummed. We have been to two Strikeforce events in Columbus and a Bellator card in Canton, but I really wanted to go to a UFC event.

So when it was announced that one of our favorite local UFC fighters, Matt Brown, would be fighting in Cincinnati, I knew that we had to go. I bought tickets the minute they went on sale for the presale I can do cuz I'm signed up for the UFC newsletter. I actually was driving to PA that day and pulled over to buy them.

The day of the fights came, so Scott and I left Zoey with my sister and niece for the afternoon/evening.

I got us some Immortal Training Camp shirts to wear

We drove up to Cincinnati, and stopped just outside Cincinnati to grab something to eat. We ended up just stopping at Applebees and getting an appetizer sampler to tide us over. I think by the end of the fights we both wished we had eaten something more substantial.

My selfie from the Applebees bathroom. LOL!

We navigated our way into Cincinnati and were able to do so without getting divorced. LOL! Scott and I don't really fight that much, but we almost always get into a fight when we drive places that we are not familiar with.( He does things like yell at me to stop when I almost run over a pedestrian in the crosswalk and of course that upsets me. LOL!) I'm not saying that I wasn't tense and anxious. I was. Especially since the Reds were playing a game that night as well, and the stadium is right next door to the arena, so we had that traffic to fight as well. It took us longer than I would have liked, but we found parking and made our way to the arena.

We had great seats. I did a great job there if I do say so myself. We were six rows back from the cage on the side where they did the fighter check ins, so we got to see all the fighters as they were being checked before entering the octagon. It got harder to see once the main card started because everyone in front of us would stand up for walk-ins. However, they all sat down for the actual fights, so we were able to see really well ... up until the last fight, but we were all on our feet for that one.

A shot of our seats

Random fighter at the check point

Since things were less crowded during the prelims and there was space between the fights, the various UFC people were signing autographs and taking pictures cage side in front of us. I was able to get my picture taken with my second favorite ref, Herb Dean.

Me with Herb

Bruce Buffer

Dana White

I don't remember most of the fights. That's not because they were bad or anything. It was just that the event was almost a month ago, so it's kind of fuzzy. However, I can tell you that the main event, which was Matt Brown vs. Erik Silva, was fantastic. Since this was Matt's hometown crowd, the cheers were deafening. It was such a good fight!!!! It was scary at first because Matt got taken down due to a body shot, but he fought his way back and then just beat the crap out of Silva. We yelled and cheered so much. Scott had no voice for an entire week after (I'm thinking he must have already been sick, but made it worse due to the yelling).

I'm really glad Matt won because the drive home would have been miserable if he had lost. We didn't get home until around 3:00 am and had to get up early the next morning with Zoey, but it was totally worth it.