From the Fight: What it's like to be a Spectator at a UFC Event

I live about an hour north of Atlanta,Georgia in a town called Rome. When it was announced that Philips Arena would be the location of UFC 88, I was among the first people to fork over a huge chunk of change for tickets to the event. $92.35 for my seat, well, the ticket cost $79 but after the "convenience" charge it came to the bigger total.

I'm not sure what's so convenient about paying an extra $13.35. Maybe it's good for the bloodsuckers that run these arenas, but I didn't especially enjoy it.

But I digress.

My friend Andy (a dental Hygienist from nearby Acworth) and I headed down to Atlanta to take in what we were sure would be the pro sports event of the year in Georgia. Given we are home to some of the worst teams in pro sports, it was a safe bet.

We got to the arena about 6:30 with the doors scheduled to open at 7. There were already thousands of people in line at every gate. We decided to kill some time by walking around the outside of the arena. It proved to be a good move when we found a shorter line around back of the place.

While walking around, we passed former WEC Light-Heavyweight champion Brian Stann, who was walking all by himself, undaunted by the crowds. I met Brian at a local show in Rome a few months back, he seemed like a pretty good guy, but it seemed last night that no one recognized him. Memo to MMA fans: Pay attention to these WEC fighters, many of them will be stars in the sport.

The doors were about 15 minutes late opening, but the throngs of people didn't seem to mind. The first fight was scheduled for 7:45, but again was delayed about 15 minutes. We figured the delay stemmed from the UFC scratching the Karo Parysian/Yoshiyuki Yoshida fight due to an injury.

Our seats were in the second deck on the isle, high enough to see down inside the Octagon without the interference of the padding around the top of the cage, or the cameramen that surrounded it, but not so high that the fighters looked like ants.

The only real drawback to the seats was that we couldn't really hear the P.A. system so we missed out on Joe Rogan's post fight interviews, but were finally at a live UFC event, so seeing it was good enough.

A Welter weight fight between Roan Carneiro and Ryo Chonan started the event, with Carneiro taking a victory by decision. The crowd around us was loud and rowdy, many of them were drunk, including the man right in front of me. But most of them settled in by the end of the first fight.

In the next fight Jason McDonald submitted Jason Lambert via rear naked choke, and Tim Boetsch won the following fight over Michael Patt by way of TKO, as the crowd went wild with the first beat down of the night.

Kurt Pelligrino dominated the first round of his fight with Thiago Tavares, and held on for two more rounds to earn the win by unanimous decision.

Dong Hyun Kim won his UFC debut with a decision over crowd favorite Matt Brown in the 170lb division.

In the last preliminary fight, Nate "The Great Marquart" won by TKO over Martin Kampmann in a middleweight bout.

The pay per view portion of the event was kicked off in my section of the arena with a mass exodus when the afore mentioned drunk in front of me vomited in the isle. The guy was drunk when he showed up, and continued to pound down the brews after arriving.

It took the arena staff just over a half hour to clean up the mess, so we all watched the Dan Henderson/Rousimar Palhares fight from the top of the stairs. One woman commented that she felt sorry for the guy, who we finally convinced the arena staff to remove from the building, but I didn't feel for him. If he couldn't handle his drink, he should have just bought the pay-per-view and stayed home. Don't make it my problem.

We returned to our seats after the first round of the fight, which was dominated by Henderson, only to realize that we could still smell the mess. We were informed that there was nothing they staff could do about it, so we informed them that we wanted a refund......They upgraded our seats instead.

Henderson went on to win the fight. From the look on Palhares face after the first round, he knew he was in over his head. Henderson pounded Palhares for the entire 15 minute fight, except for the short times he spent laying on the mat after absorbing Henderson punches. Henderson wouldn't follow him to the mat, and made it clear that he wanted to keep the fight standing. Palhares looked shock by Hendo's strength, and did everything he could think of to avoid contact.

The Co-Main event of the night featured Rich Franklin and Matt Hamil. It was the first time that the crowd was evenly divided between the two combatants. It was also probably the most even match of the night, with the fighters spending the first round finding their range, and the second going toe to toe. Franklin won the fight in the third round after a shot to the liver put Hamil on the mat.

The loudest collective "BOO" of the night came before the main event, as Rashad Evans came to the ring. His entrance music could barely be heard over the barrage of hate. Actually, I don't think "hate" is the right word, I don't think it was anything personal against Evans, he just happened to be the guy fighting the sports biggest star Chuck "The Iceman" Liddell.


The loudest BOO was countered with the loudest applause of the night when the lights went out and everyone knew that the "Iceman cometh."

Liddell seemed un-phased by the noise, of course, as we say in Georgia, this wasn't "His first rodeo."

I couldn't hear myself think as the former champion stepped into the octagon. It may well have been the loudest crowd I've ever heard at any sporting event.

The fight started slow, with Liddell chasing Evans around the ring for most of the first round. Liddell took several shots, with Evans backing away.

The crowd had booed fighters all night for not being aggressive, but they were more tolerant in the fight with the Iceman.

Evans connected with a knockout punch only a fraction of a second before a would be fight ender by Liddell had time to land. We all (the entire arena) stood in amazment for several minutes after the fight, all waiting for someone to tell us it wasn't so, before finally filing out of the arena.

On the UFC's part, the event was great. A huge card loaded with big names and plenty of action packed fights. The arena didn't exactly impress me, but I'm generally not happy with them anyway.

Local shows are great, you can see up and coming fighters and wonder which ones will make it to the big time, and you can watch these shows in a familiar venue close to home. But the UFC is at the top of the sport for a reason......They put on the best show in the business. MMA fans, if you get the chance, and have an extra stash of cash laying around, go out and see one of these events.