I had the pleasure of being at UFC 101, admittedly this was my first live UFC event. The Wachovia Center was an excellent location, but I have some words to the wise if you plan on attending the next UFC in Philadelphia.

• Do not eat or drink at the Wachovia Center! Get there early and either tailgate in the parking lot, or park and walk to a local bar/restaurant. The food and drinks are lacking in quality, and high in price (except the “Crab Fries” from Chickies and Pete’s, they are always a good decision).

• Do not fight in the audience! Some geniuses during the Aaron Riley/Shane Nelson fight, decided to show off their classiness by brawling in the audience. Two dudes got into a pushing match, and then their lady friends grabbed each others’ hair and pummeled each other ala Don Frye vs. Takayama!

• Do not watch the fights when they happen in the audience! “This is why we can’t have nice things!” Boxing (despite it’s inherent boredom), maintains a certain level of class, and I feel as though if you respect MMA as a sport we should be trying to establish dignity as well. We’ve come a long way as a sport, let’s not tarnish what we’ve worked for. The Riley vs. Nelson fight had a lot of good exchanges which went unnoticed, because people were more interested in seeing an episode of “Jerry Springer” unfold in the audience, than they were watching two professionally athletes give it their all. Admittedly, I watched a couple seconds before I came to the realization that I could see that same fight at a dive bar for free.

• Go to the Weigh In! Because it’s free and it’s awesome. Fighters walk around nonchalantly and are quick to give autographs or pictures to fans. Dana White does a Q & A before the weigh ins which was pretty entertaining, and of course the weigh ins themselves set the tone and get you excited for the next nights pugilistic affair.

All in all, watching the UFC live is something I will never forget, and plan on repeating. Hopefully, MMA will get sanctioned in New York, and they’ll have an event at MSG. I’ll keep my fingers crossed, but until then keep checking out this site because we have a lot of events coming up in our great Garden State!

Side Note: I would like to take this time to brag that I went 5 out of 5 for picking the winners of the main card. The rounds and outcomes I called were not as accurate, but most of them went the way I described (except the Sadollah/Hendricks fight). Stay tuned in the next couple weeks as I will be predicting the Ring of Combat XXVI card!

-Jersey Mike

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