I met Rich Franklin 2 weeks before his 2nd fight with Anderson Sylva. In shaking his hand, I didn’t feel much power. I swear to you, if this was someone I didn’t know, I wold have sworn on my life I could kick that dude’s ass. LOL.
I met Nate Diaz, and with him, you can just tell in his energy…there’s something not “normal” here. Diaz was really cool to me, but you could just sense something’s not right there. That dude is truly a warrior/fighter. If he didn’t get paid to fight, he’d be fighting somewhere for free.
I can just picture the two of you looking at each other with the same “WTF are we doing here faces”. I’ve been to boxing in person, and I know the sounds are far more primal than on TV, so I can only imagine UFC being amplified tenfold.
Not only was it our first event, that’s not what we went there for and it wasn’t our intention on staying. We were there for my wife to work the promo portion and one of the main sponsors was Michael and Angie Ballard (Full Throttle Saloon). I think part of what they were doing was promoting their liquor, if I recall correctly. At any rate, we met them and chatted for 15-20 minutes and Angie is just the sweetest thing ever. And towards the end of the conversation the fights are about to start, so Angie says “you guys should stay and watch the fights.” So we thought “well hell, we’re here already and what else are we going to do?”
It wasn’t a UFC event. These were low ranked guys trying to make their way up the circuit. There were a few mismatches where you could tell one guy was a real fighter and the other guy was an accountant scratching something off his bucket list.
That’s how I feel about Masvidal as well. Some guys are just fighters and they happen to get paid for it. I remember someone inside the porn industry made the same comment about Riley Reid. Some girls do it for the money or other reasons, but Riley is really about that life and getting paid is just a part of it.
It’s really great live. They do such a good job of the presentation of it. I was at the one in Detroit with Rampage vs Machinda. Ended up sitting next to one of the referee’s wives. LOL.
Yes, I finally got into it as much as boxing, and I have an itch to make it to a Vegas event soon.
Herb Dean’s wife?? There are few referees that I enjoy watching work, and the best ones shouldn’t be noticed/remembered anyway, but I’ve always loved watching Herb Dean, Richard Steele, and Mills Lane work. They just seemed to add something extra to each fight they worked without trying to be in the spotlight.
