Tonight I attended my first UFC event in person. It was at the Broomfield Event Center here just NW of Denver.
The place holds about 10,000 and was sold out. I left work early about 4 and when I got there the place was packed.
If you have never been to a UFC event, the Octagon is placed at the center on the floor. The middle 3rd is basically for the fight. They have a huge lighting cage that sits above it with big screens in all corners plus four above the ring.
The seats immediately around the Octagon is reserved for other UFC fighter and media. We were five rows up on one of the middle sides right near the fighters. In fact for much of the preliminaries we were flooded with fans coming down trying to get pictures and autographs from their favorite fighters. And the fighters actually came over and obliged. A big annoying, but nice to see.
For the broadcast, they use four cameras, one on each of the main sides. They have a milk crate that the cameramen stand on so they can get a good shot from above the ring. When the action gets close, they jump down and have a face up view.
As far as the fights go, the main even was Lauzon vs Florian. Both Boston fighters, with Florian the vet and Lauzon the up and comer. Florian pounded Lauzon into submission and won the fight.
The preliminaries were all over the map. Some were disappointing. It appeared that HOuston Alexander slipped and yet the ref ended the fight prematurely as a TKO 8 seconds into the fight. He never looked to be unconsious. Hopefully he gets a rematch.
One were the fighter was definitely knocked out was the Anthony Johnson/Tommy Speer fight. Johnson dropped Speer 51 seconds into the fight and Speer looked to be out cold.
Others had a range of endings from tap out holds to scorecard victories.
It was a fun event. Not sure if I would make a special trip to Vegas to see it, but I would probably go again if they come back to Denver.
