Fight Night 20 Recap

So last weekend I attended UFC Fight Night 20 at the Patriot Center in Fairfax VA. I took my two oldest sons and my wife. We had a great tome and it was wonderful to see my first UFC in person. Hockey and NASCAR are two sports that I was always told that you hav eto see live to really appreciate. Having never been to NASCAR I can't comment but I know this is true with the NHL. The action, and ability just does not translate to television. But seeing it live is a whole other experience. The same is true with the UFC.

Seeing it live takes it to a whole other level. The energy that was in the sold out crowd was electric. I had heard alot about the Baba O'Reily opening montage and how cool it was, but seeing it in person was incredible. It got the whole crowd hyped.

The awesomeness started the day before at the free and open to the public weigh in held the day before. It was pretty well attended and started with a Q and A with Frankie Edgar. While there was no earth shattering news uncovered it was cool to see a fighter answer questions from the fans. He even let some kid come up and stafge and choke him out. As I would find out the UFC really cares about the fans. After the Q and A you could go down and get your picture with Edgar. The picture above is Frankie with one of my sons.

After the photo op was the weigh ins and the weigh ins were great. Joe Silva was there with Goldy and Rogan it was really neat and some of the stare downs got the crowd really pumped for the fight. I would definitely recommend that anyone who has a chance to go to a weigh in does.

After the weigh ins everybody filters out. I decided to drive around the building to see if I could see any fighters exiting and sure enough I saw a small group of people gathered around some Tahoes surrounded by Security. I got out of my car with my son and sister right when Gray Maynard was walking by. Talk about a cool guy. He stopped for a picture the day before his fight. My sister sent him a thank you on Facebook and he sent back a really nice message to her saying he always has time for his fans.

A couple minutes later Arianny and Chandella came out and walked over to say hi to the fans and took a couple of photos. Then the man himself, Lorenzo Fertita came out. I called out to him and he walked up the little hill and shook hands with fans and took the above picture with my son. I cannot express enough how cool this is that the owner of the UFC took his time to come over and speak to about 10 fans and take pictures. In no other sport would you see that and it is just further proof that MMA is the best sport in the world. I am a fan for life.

We waited about an hour until a UFC worker told us to leave. It was obvious that Dana was still inside but my kid was cold so we split. My friend Ron acted like he was leaving but came right back and in a few minutes Goldy came out and said that Dana would come out in a few minutes. By this time there were only a few fans still around. Dana took pics with everyone and gave everybody there 4 free tickets each! I regret missing him but hopefully I will see him again one day.

The next nights were the fights and although it was a card full of close decisions. One really cool thing happened. Gerald Harris fought early in the night and after showering and changing he came up into the stands and took pics with fans including my son. By the end of the night we were exhausted from yelling and cheering and I cannot wait to go to my next UFC.