This past Saturday, I had the pleasure of taking in the Ring of Fire 29: Aftershock mixed martial arts fighting event at the Broomfield Events Center. As I mentioned before, this followed after taking my company founder (I’m not supposed to treat him like “the boss”…) out to roller derby last month. As it turns out, his wife is friends with the wife of the local fighter who was the main event of the night. This fact would turn out add both interest and stress to the night for her.
I don’t have the wherewithal to run down all of my observations from the night, but the fights leading up to the two big fights were enjoyable. The results are available for those who care. A few highlights:
- There was one premature stoppage. Dude got clocked but was defending himself “intelligently” by the time he landed on his back.
- One of the referees looked like The Wife’s brother in a couple decades. No worries, he was a handsome devil.
- The crowd was… Wow. Now that I think about it, it should have been what I expected.
Which brings me to the two big fights of the night, both in the 205lb weight class.
First we had Big Mike Nickels the Denver-based tattoo shop owner who had a short stint on the Spike “reality” show, The Ultimate Fighter. He was fighting a guy named Carpaccio (yeah, that’s what we thought) who is Army Airborne. Seven second knockout by Big Mike. Wow. Afterwards, they gave the mic to Carpaccio, who is a great guy, obviously. He apologized for not putting on a better show and then proceeded to tell us that he’s shipping out to Iraq, like immediately and asked that “even if you don’t support the war, please support your troops”. This generated a lot of “Awww, bummer.” and even more patriotic applause.
Then Nickels got on the mic… He started off well, letting us know that his next fight may be against Stefan Bonner in the UFC. Then he went completely off track. He was trying to say something nice about his opponent, but it came out as something like “I don’t believe in murdering women and babies” at which point the ring announcer snatched the microphone and said “LET’S HEAR IT FOR OUR TROOPS!”
Odd.
Then of course, he got accosted by the two supposed Marines sitting in front of us. (I say “supposed” because they looked like overweight frat boys, not the type of Marine I know.) It was good drama, if you’re into that sort of thing. I just hope Dana White doesn’t pull the plug on his big fight because he decides he doesn’t want any anti-war hippies in his league…
Then we had the main even, featuring the afore-mentioned friend-of-a-friend-of-a-friend, Eliot “Fire” Marshall. His opposition had such a classic “heel” entrance I had to laugh. Hailing from Las Vegas, Marcus Sursa came out strutting and posing and tossing autographed play money and photos into the crowd. Fantastic. Everyone hated him instantly. The fight itself was good. Marcus made a strong go at it at first, applying good pressure with his striking game, but he just couldn’t hang with Eliot on the ground. Eliot finished him off with one of many chokes in the second round of what I would consider a fun fight. Eliot’s wife and the boss’s wife didn’t seem to have a whole lot of fun, however.
Fighting sports might not be the best thing for family participation…
I also went to an MMA event with my boss. We ended up sitting in front of the family members of one of the fighters. I don’t think anyone explained MMA to them. While it was a stand up fight they (as far as we could tell, a mom, a sister and a girlfriend/wife)were screaming “kick his ass, knock him out,” etc. Once it went to the ground and their guy found himself in a choke hold, they were freaking out “Oh my god your killing him, what’s happening, why isn’t anyone stopping this, get off him” My boss and I found ourselves turned around explaining what was happening and what was about to happen. OK, he’s probably going to tap out now, no choking the other fighter is completely legal. OK, so he didn’t tap and now he’s sleeping, they will sit him up and cross his legs…
I agree, maybe leave the fam at home and just call them after your fight to tell them how ya did.
Yeah, apparently Eliot has had an exceptionally easy go of it so far. The fight he had before this one was the first one to make it past the first round - and most of those first rounders were over in seconds, not minutes (all of this is fourth-hand knowledge though… it’s what I hear).
So, before this fight he sits the wife down and tells her “this guy could actually hurt me”, so I’m sure she was freaked out going into it. Then sure enough he had to eat a few pops to the face and even flirted with giving the guy a rear naked choke, so yeah he had a real fight. The wife, based on his career so far, probably had no idea what a real fight would look like.