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Belated Recon: UFC 137 REAL IN THE FIELD (PART 2) Chuck vs Rampage III, Weigh-In's and Mayhem's Oh My!

Ever been here? No? That sucks.

Greetings Maniacs.

You may remember me from my most recent piece, I am Banned From BE: I for One Welcome My New Mania Overlords, in which you all joined me in a metaphorical pillaging of the ass of Bloody Elbow Managing Editor Brent Brookhouse.

Good Times.

So it is in the spirit of sharing that I bring to you Part 2 of Belated Recon: UFC 137 REAL IN THE FIELD. You can find the first part here, at Bloody Elbow (along with the rest of my hilarious, brilliant, poignant, prophetic, earth-shattering blog) , because I guess you can ban a guy but then still leave all his work up? Ungrateful fucks. Go ahead, read it. I'll wait. Totally worth it. Seriously this one won't be nearly as good if you don't, so go fuckin' read it.

You're back? Good! Did you enjoy yourself? You did! Well, strap yourself in young man because there is a whole lot more where that came from!

*(Click on the Pictures to see the whole thing, I'm retarded and don't know how to crop, sorry)

I stand on a desolate, starlit plain. The wind howls around me, an angry, malignant presence. I can feel... something, coming. A figure approaches me... It... Is... A giant talking M & M, the yellow one. He gestures to the glass of milk I have in my hand. The Milk, I realize, is warm. What the fuck am I doing with this warm Milk? The M & M, never breaking eye contact, gently touches the hand holding the milk. We continue to stare at one another. Ohhh kayyyy.... He begins to make stupid cell phone noises at me, his eyes widening in alarm, slapping at my milk hand now. Just when I decide I am going to beat the chocolate out of this little fucker, I open my eyes and am staring at King motherfuckin Tut. What the fuck?

Oh. I was dreaming. And I am in Vegas. Sweet.

Turns out the yellow M & M was my spirit animal and he was trying to get my ass up and OUT because:

a) We in Vegas.

b) Doors Open for Weigh-In's at 1pm sucka!

c) It is now 11:55 AM and we still in bed. Shit Son!

I simultaneously leap from the bed, turn off the cellphone alarm, open the blinds in the room full force- SHHHH KOOOOM! and scream at Brazilian Hotwife "Get your stank ass out of bed bitch! We got WEIGH-INS!" ...She is not amused.

"Weigh-eens don't start unteel 2 duuuuuuude!" I can tell she's pissed when she starts calling me "dude." I care not, my youthful exuberance will not be stymied by this South American Harpy this day! God Damn Savage!

"Yea, but if we want good seats we gotta go NOW. SO UP! UP I SAY!" I want to be there by 12, to be damn near at the front of the line thus only a few feet away from the stare downs. If someone slaps their opponent I want to be able to hear that shit, ya dig? Once I had dragged Hotwife out of the bed by her ankles and dumped her on the floor, I was confident she would be sufficiently adrenaline pumped with anger so as to be completely unable to return to slumber. Now to rouse Eric and Ike!

I had... Reservations about leaving these two alone last night, and as I simultaneously pound on their hotel room door and let the phone ring out, I found my reservations to be completely justified. After about 10 minutes I say "fuck those guys" and go back to my room, where I hope to find Hotwife damn near ready to go. She obviously hasn't even begun yet.

"Where are the boys?" She asks with a laugh.

"Either dead or unconscious, either way we are going to the weigh-ins in 15 minutes."

As she prepares the lie that is every woman's public facade, I try Eric's phone. My window gives me a perfect view of the Luxor Sphinx's butthole. He doesn't actually have one, but I can see where it would be. He answers on the first ring, surprisingly enough.

"YO!" He is excited. Not a good sign from Eric in the morning.

"Yo. Weigh Ins man where you at?"

"Uhhhh... I'm not goin."

"WHAT? Why not?"

"Playin' Poker."

"You didn't sleep."

"Nope! Hold on a sec... Me and this English dude are totally cheating! It's awesome!" He is whispering now, and he has taken on a manner of speaking which can only mean he is on drugs.

"You know what they do to cheaters in Vegas right? You ever see Casino?"

"Uhhh... No?"

"Well just come to the fuckin weigh ins before someone breaks your hands with a hammer. And where the fuck is Ike?"

" I dunno. Haven't seen him. Mmmm.. Maybe I'll come. Alan is leaving. I'll meet you there. Save me a seat."

"Ok, sure." I mentally resolve to not save him a seat.

15 agonizing minutes later, Hotwife is ready. She may take her sweet ass time, but she is also the only one who is coming to the UFC 137 weigh- ins with me, and we have matching Team Penn shirts. This is what we refer to as a Down-Ass Bitch.

Mandalay Bay is literally a golden blaze in the high noon Vegas sun, and I am super stoked that in just a few short hours I will be watching B.J. Penn and Nick Diaz step onto the scales. The inside of of Mandalay is pretty fucking nice, to say the least. The giant marquees with Nick and BJ give me goosebumps as we pass. Shit just got real. Nothing can sour my mood now!

Ohhh yea.

"You can't bring that camera in here." Fuckin Security!

"Um, those people are bringing their cameras in." I point to the gaggle of fucks bringing in their cameras.

"Those are small cameras. You have a big camera. Small cameras only."

Rather than sit there wasting my time trying to educate this simpleton on decades old advances in camera technology and how those "little" cameras can produce images equal of quality to those of "big" cameras, me and Hotwife high tail it back to the Luxor to put the fucking camera away. My phone rings on the way, it's Ike.

"Yo! What the fuck man? Where are you? Weigh-Ins!" I'm getting sick of saying this already.

"I'm... In my room? I'm in my room. Where are you? ... Where's Eric?" Jesus. You'd think it would be ok to leave two 23 year old single dudes in Vegas for a night.

"I'm coming to your room. Get ready bitch."

After we dump the camera, Eric calls and decides he will be joining us after all, as he partner in crime have had a falling out over Eric's name and he can no longer fleece the suckers, so we roll by the poker table to grab him.

Alan the Englishman: "Ewik? Yoa name is EwiK? What kind of pawents name thea baby Ewik? Were you an ugly baby?"

Eric: "Fuck you Alan."

Eric Cheating at Poker

Alright, we got a full crew again! The Mandalay is even more ablaze as we approach this time, and as we wait for the light to change I can literally hear the vampire skin of Eric and Ike begin to sizzle. They are pale-bordering- on-green and are both reeling like heavyweights in the fifth round. This amuses me so I took a picture.

LOL @ pain

Eric: "Yo I think I did E last night."

Me: "What? What do you mean you think? Where did you get it?"

Eric: "These dudes gave it to me."

Me: "These dudes."

Eric "Yea. At the poker table, they just snuck it to me. It felt more like horse tranquilizer though."

Me: "That's awesome dude."

Eric: "I feel sick."

Now camera free, we can actually proceed to get in line for the weigh-ins. My plan was to buy a fight club membership right in the line up, as this is what they had done at UFC 115 in Vancouver. Fight Club members get in an hour or two earlier than the general public, thus getting the dopest seats for the weigh-in and getting to chill instead of stand in line for 2 hours. Well, the fucks decided not to do that this time, or perhaps that is not the regular practice at all. Regardless, we were informed that we would have to wait in line another 2 hours before going in with all the riff raff.

"Fuck this, I'm out!" Eric decides to go back to his poker table. After standing around for 10 minutes, we realize that Ike has a Fight Club membership! And we can get in by showing it to them on his phone! And it's only good for 2 people! FUCK! After much deliberation it is decided that Ike doesn't want to wait in line, and Hotwife's offer of "Oh you can go ahead with your friend it's OK I'll wait" is nothing more than an elaborate ruse to give her something to yell at me about later, so I wait in the regular line for 2 hours while they go in and get some good seats. Fuckin' GAY.

There is about 2,000 people waiting in line, and a fuckton of BJ Penn shirts, which pleases me. As I wait, I see a very pink-haired japanese man walking by with some dudes in suits. I am a little saddened to see that out of a crowd of about 2,000 MMA "fans" I am the only one to recognize K-1 Veteran, Aoki Killer, and quite possibly the world's baddest- ass cross dresser, Yuichiro Nagashima.

"Oh! Nagashima!" I bow and wave. I must look like a tool. He stops briefly and shakes my hand, and I of course have no camera. Fuck! I point at his knee and say "Uhh, Aoki! Boom! HAHA!" He laughs, bows briefly, says something in Japanese and is hustled off by his retinue, who look very DREAM-y to me. I continue to wait, feeling a little better about my situation.

"Who was that guy?" Fellow line-dude asks.

"He is a bad-ass kickboxer that likes to dress up as a little girl. He almost killed Aoki. He's awesome." I kill the rest of the time telling Line-dude about how Aoki clowned the fuck out of him at their special rules match, basically cheating and stalling for the first "k-1" round, and then gets dummied by a Nagashima Death-Knee about 10 seconds in to the "MMA" round shooting for a sloppy double from about 10 feet out.

"Wow. He is awesome." Word.

And now it's time to go in! Yay!

If you have never been to a UFC weigh in, get on that shit because the atmosphere is electric son. Goldie was already out, warming up the crowd. The crowd response this guy gets is fucking ridiculous, he gets mad hate from the MMA snobs such as us, but man the people fuckin love this guy. I find Ike and Hotwife, who got some pretty decent seats in the lower section, and Hotwife has Cheetos! Awesome!

Cheetos!

"Dig I miff anying?" I say through a mouthful of delicious yet foul orange Cheeto. Goldie is telling us that before the Weigh-ins, we will be having a presentation from THQ about the new UFC game! My inner video-nerd gets a boner.

Goldie isn't finished. "So in order to properly convey to you fans here how awesome this game is, we have a couple guys here that want to play each other and show off the game. Please welcome, former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion QUINTON! "RAMPAGE" JACKSON!"

Fuck. Off. AWESOME! The place goes fucking apeshit for Rampage as he struts out to the stage and fist bumps Goldie.

"Ohhh Ima whoop up on Chuck so bad!"

"And please welcome his opponent, former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion and UFC Hall of Famer, CHUCK! the "ICEMAN" LIDDELLLLLL!"

Holy shit. My inner MMA nerd and my inner videogame nerd just started fucking each other. Like, dirty fucking each other. The place is going fucking bananas like Chuck and Rampage are actually going to fight. They certainly squared up for a stare-down like they were going to. This is so fucking awesome. Chuck vs Rampage 3!

"And did I forget to mention that this fight will be taking place in the game's all new PRIDE mode, complete with soccer kicks and stomps?" I actually blacked out at that point, and by the time Hotwife woke me up the fight was already underway on the big screen, and Chuck was getting his shit pushed in. Rampage either had been practicing in secret or Chuck just sucks at video games. Rampage had figured out the Covered Hook, and kept blasting Chuck, who didn't seem like he even knew how to block. BOOM! another hook, Chuck goes down! The place explodes with cries of "Get up Chuck! C'mon Chuck!" Rampage begins a stomping assault on Chuck, blasting him to the floor every time he tries to get up, it's not looking good for The Iceman. Rampage jumps into Chuck's guard and starts pounding away, but Chuck grabs a Kimura!

Chuck got BJJ yo!

Rampage struggles but it's tight, Chuck may finish! OH! Rampage escapes the hold and jumps to his feet. The real Chuck was beginning to do his "Watching a Fight Dance" with the controller in his hands, and it seemed to be only a matter of time before Video Chuck succumbed to Rampage's vicious assault. But just then Chuck retaliates with his signature overhand right! Chuck has it figured now, and he is spamming the fuck out of that overhand right! Rampage is rocked! More overhand rights! Chuck follows up with a headkick and drops Rampage! Chuck is pounding him out! TKO! THE CROWD GOES WILD! Seriously, it sounded like Chuck had come out of retirement and actually KO'd Quinton, it was that loud.

After Chuck gets his PRIDE Championship belt, he and Rampage shake hands and give their post fight interviews, and clear the stage for the weigh ins.

Good to see Chuck with a belt again

If the place got loud when Goldie hit the stage, I'm pretty sure Joe Rogan and Dana could run for the presidency of the USA and win in a fucking landslide based off what I was hearing in there when they came out. Bananas son.

Always a pleasure to see Mirko in the flesh, and Roy's fat suit only served to warm my heart to him even further. Brain damaging Crocop again, not so much. All the fighters made weight, although for some reason I am remembering Ricardo Funch being over, If he was even on that card?

What a fuckin fatty. Wait a minute...

The highlight of course came when it was time for the Main Event fighters to step on the scales, none other than B.J. Penn and Nick Diaz. The very pro-Penn crowd let Diaz know what they thought of him, with a few knots of Diaz supporters going "Buck Buck" and throwing up gang signs and such. I give my vocal support to Diaz, as he is a close second in my heart to B.J. But man, Diaz' fans do not make him look good. They actually do scream "209 BITCH" and stuff like that. Very humorous. Time for the stare down...

BJ Squares up, and Nick butts his head into BJ's and pushes him back! BJ gets set and pushes back, knocking Nick back a bit, so Nick tries to slap BJ! Holy shit son shit just got real! The crowd boos Nick mercilessly, not realizing what they hate about Nick is exactly what makes him so awesome. Nick doesn't care this is B.J. Penn, UFC legend, this is some fuckin fool who thinks he can beat Nick's ass, but that ain't fuckin happenin yo. I will say that I did feel bad for B.J. as it seemed he was genuinely hurt by what Nick did, but that's fine with me because Nick just gave him fuel for the Island Fire!

Aw. You're a jerk Nick.

On the way out we see Tri-Star El Hefe Firas Zihabi, and when I tell him I'm from Canada and he asks why I'm not wearing a GSP shirt, I have only one reaction:

He scurred.

Time to get fucked up!

***

After we ate and got some drinks, it was time to hit up the Strip and BJ's Pre-Party at the MGM. As we are walking a black dude whispers "Kush?" to us as we pass, and my head snaps around like a fuckin whip. We nod, and Kanye follows us up the escalator and slangs us some weed. Awesome! We go out back behind the Luxor to blaze, and all of a sudden Vegas is WAY cooler to me. Pretty lights! It's Halloween, World Rodeo, and UFC weekend all at the same time, I'm baked and Vegas is bumpin. Life could be worse, to say the least.

Eventually we wind up at BJ's Pre-Party, and being his number one fan I of course recognize his Mom out front selling T-Shirts. I reslove to only buy my shirt from her, and wait in line. The other girl says she can help me, but I'm like "Nah I'm good." She keeps watching me like I'm gonna steal the shirt, until I can get BJ's moms attention and chat her up a bit.

"I just want you to know I think you are a good Mom for what you did during the whole GSP thing, and don't listen to those idiots out there. BJ is lucky to have you for a Mom." She was touched, but she did say "You know, GSP just came in a little earlier to wish BJ luck against Nick, they shook hands and hugged and everything. I think they are friends now." WHAAAA?!? My world just got flipped upside down! I thank BJ's Mom and me and Hotwife go in and get drunk with a bunch of people wearing BJ Penn shirts. Good times. Did I mention we lost Eric and Ike again? Whippersnappers!

***

It's 11:30 AM on Fight Day, and Eric, Hotwife and I are standing in line for a meet and greet with Shane Carwin, Meisha Tate, and one of my favorite human beings, Jason "Mayhem" Miller. We are really just here for Miller, Carwin and Tate's booty merely being icing on the cake. For THREE FUCKING HOURS, we wait. In the meantime I have educated a very large, very nice, southern gentleman on the finer points of the Anderson Silva - Chael Sonnen conflict. Mainly about how awesome Anderson is for calling his shot like Babe fuckin' Ruth, fighting injured, fighting a juiced up monster, and still coming out with the win, and getting that win exactly the way he wanted to. "YOU REALLY THINK HE TOOK THAT BEATING SO HE COULD LOCK UP A SUB AT THE END" You say? Yes. Yes, as a matter of fact I do. I mean, it's not like his BJJ coach is Big Nog, and it's not like Big Nog has ever taken a pounding so he could lock up a sub after his opponent is exhausted. Oh, wait, he did that ALL THE FUCKIN TIME, I forgot.

So, after 3 hours, we are almost to the door, almost to Miller Time, and who do I see walk right past the line and into the store like a boss, like he owns the place, but Joey muthafuckin Diaz! If you are a JRE devotee like myself I'm sure you can imagine my excitement. The ignorant fuckholes kick Joey out of the store and as he is walking past I grab him.

"Joey! Hey dude! You're the fuckin man! Love your shit." He is pleased with the recognition. This guy was in Spiderman 2! What the fuck is wrong with you people!

"Thank you, thank you. So who is up in there anyways?"

"Uhhh we got Shane Carwin, Meisha Tate, and of course Mr. Miller there." Joey is unimpressed, like a boss should be. I ask him if he would do the honor of blazing with us before the fights. He is down, and says he will meet us later in the lobby of the Mandaly Bay. SWEET.

My joy is short lived however as just as we get to the door a fuckstick comes out and says "Sorry guys, we can't let anymore in. We're closing in five minutes."

"AWWW WHAT THE FUCK we've been here for 3 hours dude!" Hotwife takes umbrage, cuts the line and starts screaming "MEELER! MEELER! OVER HEEEERE DUUUUDE!" He actually comes over and starts laughing, apologizing to her that the store won't let her in and there is nothing he can do, but "You're fucking hilarious. Throw me that I'll sign it." She pitches my UFC glove through the door, almost smacking Carwin in the face. Miller snags it, signs it, and throws it back! SICK! They shut the doors and lock them 5 seconds later. Well, I didn't get to meet Miller but I got a UFC glove signed by him at least.

We are super bummed heading back to our room, when we round the corner, and who is walking towards us but Jason Miller!

"Aw Shit! Look who it is! We waited for 3 hours for you dude!" He is apologetic like it was his fault entirely. Why are fighters so nice? He promises to give Eric and I a Mayhem assignment on twitter so we can get our Monkey Numbers (still waiting, Jason) and we are on our way. It's almost 3:30 and the card starts soon, if not already underway. UFC 137 Bitches! YEA!

We see Joey standing by himself in the lobby, and we go shoot the shit for a few minutes. He declines the blaze offer saying his is good for now, but "we can meet up here after the fights though for sure". We continue on our way, and we see a guy on the way in you may recognize:

Considering he was getting mobbed like a motherfucker he was pretty cool about taking pictures and whatnot.

The card leading up to the Main Event was pretty fuckin' good, if you can recall. The highlight for me was Cerrone putting his shin into Siver's brain, I went fucking apeshit for that. Mitrione disapointed the fuck out of me with that performance against Kongo, I thought for sure Meathead would give me a revenge KO for Pat Burray. Mirko taking yet another nap in the middle of the cage hurt me plenty, but him coming out to "Wild Boys"..... Duran Duran is the fucking shit. I love to imagine the 18 Year old Mirko strutting through the mean streets of Zagreb, collar up, crew cut bumpin, breath misting in the cold. "Wild Boys, Wild Boys! Wild Boys, Wild Boys!" I'm not gay like, at all.

Main Event time....

The promo finishes, the screens go black. The Deftones "Feiticeira" hits the loudspeakers, and every goosebump on my body gets a boner. The menace in the air is palpable, Nick Diaz comes fuming out to the cage, the sounds of So-Cal a fitting accompaniment to his scowl. The boos rain down from the Pro-BJ crowd, and that's fine with Nick, because I don't know if you know this, but he does not give a fuck. The Stockton Bad Boy is situated.

The lights go down, and the most fucking badass ukulele riff of all time kicks on. If I could be serious here for a moment; I consider myself one of the more expressive individuals I know, but the feelings I was experiencing hearing that music and seeing BJ come out right underneath me with his crew, blinking, licking his lips, talking to himself, just being vintage BJ... I really can't even put it into words. I am a 30 year-old grown ass man, and I am not ashamed to say I could have literally burst into tears at that moment, I was welling up like a motherfucker. My wife understands me better than anyone and she squeezed my hand to let me know: She knows. Down Ass Bitch, didn't I tell you?

For me, the trip could have ended right there and I would have been happy. The back and forth war that those men treated us to was a spectacular bonus, and BJ rallying back in the third round, not quitting after getting his shit pushed in made him a hero to me all over again. I couldn't have asked for anything more. He sure did let the air out of my sails with the retirement announcement, I'm pretty sure I was still standing there with my jaw hanging after the entire building had emptied.

As a result we missed Joey Diaz. Dammit! We did run into some characters you may recognize on the way out though:

We spent the rest of the night drinking and smoking our sorrows away at BJ's after party, which he obviously never came to. And we may have gotten a little too fucked up, because we lost the boys, overslept and are now in danger of missing our flights! Fuck!

Eric wakes me up with the phone. "Yo we missed our flight. We have to stay here man."

"What? The flight isn't till 10! It's like 8."

"Yea but, we're gonna miss it. Let's stay here man."

"FUCK THAT get ready!"

Somehow we get up and packed in 10 minutes, and I am pounding on Eric's and Ike's door, they of course do not answer. How in the fuck do you call me and wake me up then fall asleep yourself? I go back to my room to call them, and they are like "What? No we were here the whole time dude you weren't here." We go back to their room and pound on the door, and they both explode out of the room like Jack-in-the-Boxes. "HEY MAN! WHAT TOOK YOU SO LONG? LET"S GO!" They are both shivering and lashing their tongues like fucking lizards. Great.

The cab drops my wife at her terminal, we make a teary goodbye as she is on her way to Brazil for a few weeks. The cab driver then takes us to the wrong terminal, so we zombie sprint for the right one.

Ike stops to yak a stream of green bile into a garbage can. Me and Eric laugh.

When we get to the terminal, we find that SUNWING has already departed, and being a charter company, they take their entire operation with them when they go. That means there is literally not even anyone we can complain to. Our flight, scheduled to leave at 10am, left at 9 fucking 15 am instead, just for shits and giggs I suppose.

Eric: "Ok well we have to go back to Vegas. Let's go to the pool dude."

Ike: "Fuck this. I'm buying a ticket and going home." Fuckin Day Traders, think they are so baller. He ended up sleeping in the airport until his flight.

Me: "There has to be someone we can talk to. This is ridiculous."

Eric: "Just move past the denial into the acceptance phase dude. We are staying. Pool?"

Me: "Fuck."

Eric: "..."

Me: "Pool."

Be sure to check out the upcoming masterpiece UFC 148 REAL IN THE FIELD, hopefully it won't take 9 months to finish that one. Thanks for reading Maniacs.

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