I'm tired... I have to admit that, and that I'm also dreading writing this blog... The reason is that I did so much stuff since last Thursday (3 fights in 3 cities all over CA in four days) that writing about it while i'm trying to recover from the weekend has me dragging my feet. So here I lay in bed early on tuesday morning as I weave a tale of my adventures...
Wednesday, January 21, 2009.
I was supposed to leave on wednesday morning to head to Lemoore for the Palace fighting Championships weigh ins. I went to grab some breakfast at the Cracked Egg, a local spot we often start our day with. Well Dan Henderson did not pass go, did not collect 200 bucks, he came straight to Vegas after Ireland to start filming the next installment of TUF. Wednesday was the first day of filming and he and his team met us for breakfast on the way to the Palms. Needless to say, after we were done eating, I got caught up in errands all day and didn't end up on the road.
I got a text that evening from Lexxi Tyler and Razor Rob who were in town visiting. They wanted to meet up for dinner so I suggested Kaizen Sushi (of course I did, would you expect any less?) As I parked my car in the parking lot, I looked over to a truck I thought I recognized and had seen earlier that day.. I walked into Kaizen and sure enough, the owner of the truck was there. Dan Henderson and some of the guys from Team Quest (all the ones I had breakfast with earlier in the day) were seated perusing the menus. They were surprised to see me as I had been intending to leave town; I greeted them then sat down with Lexxi and Rob for various yummy sushi rolls and watched as Rob polished off a plate of oysters.
Thursday, January 22, 2009
I got up early on Thursday morning to pack my car and get on the road. I had a 5-6 hour drive to get to Lemoore. I always keep myself busy on my drives by working through new ideas in my head, or catching up on phone calls. This drive was no different and I found myself pulling into the Tachi Palace at 4pm to check in. In a matter of 10 minutes of getting there I ran into a bunch of the fighters on the card. I took off to my room and hung out there working for the next couple hours.
I thought that the fights started at 6pm that night so I wandered downstairs around 5:30. They didn't start until 6:30 so I had some time to chill and get my equipment set up before the first fight walked out. At 6:30 on the dot, the PFC announcer stepped in the ring and two little girls sang the Star Spangled Banner in unison; It was an amazing rendition.
The next few hours were fun as I shot, then loaded the photos to my laptop. There were some pretty damn good fights on the card; the fights that were lacking in skill were definitely not lacking in heart. It made for a ton of crowd response and an over all great night of fights where 3 belts changed hands! Here are all the fight pics..
Afterwards, true to routine when it comes to the Palace, we adjourned to the cafe. I sat with Cyrille Diabate, Xavier Foupa-Pokam and all the MMA Agents guys. One table over was the Team Alpha Male crew and the Sacramento On The Mat crew; Tanya Evinger's colorful comments could be heard throughout the restaurant. I ordered a plate of pot stickers and I shit you not, the best french fries ever. I travel a lot of places and based on experience have to award the BFFE (Best French Fries Ever!) title to the cafe at the Tachi Palace.
After I finished eating, I wandered around the bar for a bit. It was about 1am so I headed to the room to start loading pics. Rara and I were getting up at 5am to get on the road to SD for the last minute WEC Press Conference, and then back up to Anaheim for the Affliction Weigh Ins. I finally crashed out around 230; I made sure to set a wake up call with the front desk as well as both mine and rara's phone alarms.
Friday, January 24th, 2009
We Were up by 5:30 and packed all of our stuff before heading downstairs to use the last of our food vouchers in the cafe. I ordered an omlette as well as some more of the BFFE's instead of hash browns. We were on the road by 6:30 am with Rara driving so I could get all the photos organized and online.
The roads were crappy but we still made good time and were pulling into Studio City to pick up my girlfriend Krista by 9:30am. We intended to get to San Diego in a hurry, but in looking at the times realized that we wouldn't make the press conference and then back in time for the Weigh ins. So we took our time and ran some errands before heading to the Honda Center in Anaheim.
The weigh ins were held in a different manner that I was used to for all the UFC fights I had been to. They had the media set up on the floor in front of the stage and the fans in the stands on each side. We had arrived with plenty of time to spare so I wandered around shooting many of the MMA faces that were in the crowd.
On top of the weigh ins looking different than I was used to, they were run much different. There was no music or highlight reels introducing fighters and as each fighter stepped off the scales, they were interviewed by Ron Kruck. Needless to say, there was a lot of time in between each weigh in for me to run around and take more pics. Overall, the turnout to the weigh ins was great even if the production could have been better.
The girls and I made our way back to the fighter hotel to grab some showers and clean up. We hit the hotel cafe around 9pm and dragged Chael Sonnen to eat with us. Krista made a joke over dinner about how she couldn't wait for to see Vitor knock out his opponent the next night. Chael gave her a pretty dirty look before he realized she was just teasing him. I looked around the restaurant and noticed many familiar faces in the booths surrounding us.
After eating, we headed to the lobby bar where we spent the rest of our evening. Many of the teams were in there and even if they weren't drinking, they were at least socializing. I kept getting texts from Ken Pavia so we headed up to Jay Hieron's room where he was playing a card game similar to Uno. This was his way of relaxing prior to his fight the next day. I didn't stay long though. I made one more pass through the lobby before heading to bed.
Saturday, January 25th, 2009
I was up by 9am after a full nights sleep and back on my computer. I was trying my hardest to stay on top of all the work as I went along so I didn't get overwhelmed by it all at once. I picked out what I was wearing for the night, packed a small bag and then got on the road by 10:30 to San Diego for the WEC weigh ins. It took a little over an hour to get there from Anaheim; a statistic I was thrilled about as I was trying to make it back in time for the pay per view portion of the Affliction card.
 |  |
I was at the Westin by 11:30 and met up with Jamie Varner as he was cutting weight. He was a grumpy guy as he worked on shedding the 6 pounds he had left to make 155. He put on plastics and worked up a sweat by hitting pads lightly. He had about a half pound to go after that. I couldn't head into the sauna at the gym across the street so I grabbed a smoothie and then put my make up on for the night. After a quick stop in PB for some Teriyaki Chicken from Big Kahuna's, I found myself enjoying my lunch from my seat at the weigh ins. It was 3pm and there was still an hour before the guys hit the scales.
I have never seen more guys have to undress behind a towel as I did for this weigh in. I watched as the commissioner hesitated with each fighter and I wondered if the scale was off of what it had been when the guys were checking their weight earlier in the day. By 4:26, the weigh ins were ending and I broke down my equipment as fast as I could and made a dash to my car outside in the parking lot. I prayed for no traffic as I navigated my way up to Anaheim. I had my photos loading from my camera to my laptop as I made the drive.
I arrived to the Honda Center and tried to keep patient as I was stuck in the parking lot line. Rara found me there and jumped in my car as I found a spot in the deep recesses of the Honda Center lot. Krista met us at the media center door to hand Rara her ticket and I left them as I picked up my credential and headed ringside.
The lights were on in the arena and there was no one in the ring so I was relieved as I had made it before the PPV started. It was chaotic by the ring as I snapped some photos of Jenna Jameson and her friend, as well as Spencer Pratt and Heidi Montag. I don't watch TV at all so the only reason I recognized them was everyone else was snapping their photos. I found my photo position on the opposite side of the ring; I passed Donald Trump (yeah rubbed elbows with the big boy!) and Oscar De La Hoya on my way over. The lights went down in the arena at the moment that I set my back pack down so I threw together my equipment in just enough time to get photos of the intro. On my way back, I made sure to snap pics of Oscar and Donald. These are also pics of the other people I spotted there.
And we were off! The event started with a fight between Dan Lauzon and Bobby Green. Bobby was a last minute replacement for Chris Horodecki; talk about a big break! Bobby came out of the corner super aggressive and within moments a low blow he delivered had the fight in time out for five minutes. This ended up being the story of the fight as two more low blows had 2 points deducted from his score. It didn't matter though.. Dan secured a rear naked choke that had Bobby tapping at 4:55 of round 1.
I jumped up to start moving the photos off my camera and on to my lap top. I also worked on rotating and organizing the photos from the WEC weigh ins. I didn't have much time though and within moments the next fighters were walking out.
I spent the next five minutes shooting Paul Buentello as he delivered an ass beating on Kirill Sidelnikov. Kirill many were calling Baby Fedor and was one of the Last Emporer's training partners, or so I was told. I watched as Kirill kept coming and coming into the onslaught of punches from Paul Buentello that he blocked with his face. The doctors finally stopped the fight due to cuts on Kirill's face at the end of the third round, but not before Paul bent him over and knocked into him with a well aimed pelvic thrust. After getting the guys together for a team shot, I went back to my computer and finished organizing the WEC Weigh In photos and got them up online. Again, the next fight walked out while I was doing this.
Babalu and Sokoudjou began their fight with a number of exchanges. It seemed to me that Round one went to Thierry although sometimes it's dificult to tell through a lens. Halfway into round two, Sobral sunk an anaconda choke that caused Thierry to tap out. After more team pictures, I was back at my laptop loading pics again.
As Vitor Belfort and Matt Lindland circled in the ring, I didn't have more than a second to blink before a left from Vitor dropped Matt to the canvas.. I watched as 4 more punches landed on a flailing Matt Lindland, knocking him out as the referee jumped in. In shock I saw Matt convulsing and his feet hopping up and down on the mat. There was a long break as the doctors tried to neck brace an incoherent Lindland. He ended up walking out of the ring on his own accord. I looked around and the crowd was in a state of shock.
Josh Barnett and Gilbert Yvel stepped into the ring and the crowd watched as Josh took a decisive win. He took down Yvel from the get go, and while Yvel did everything he could to defend himself and try to turn the fight, he was no match on the ground for Josh Barnett. Between the kimura attempts and the ground and pound, Yvel finally tapped out near the end of the third round.
Now, I had been too busy in between rounds to even get excited about the main event of the evening, but as they walked out that quickly changed. I watched across the ring as Arlovski was checked in by the commission and then the buzz in the crowd turned into a roar as Fedor Emelianenko walked out into the arena. It was like being in the presence of a god as I watched peoples faces in the crowd. He was expressionless as the commission checked him in; he calmly stepped into the ring as if the fight was no big deal at all.
The fight begins and the crowd's noise level kept getting louder and louder. I watched in amazement as Arlovski seems to be the aggressor in the fight and was scoring points as his punches connected. Andrei's back was to me as I saw him leap into the air; a move that he never landed as a looping right from Fedor had him KO'd face down on the canvas. Fedor moved in to attack but was pushed back as John McCarthy stepped in to stop the fight. And the crowd went absolutely nuts as Fedor, with his fist somewhat in the air, wandered aimlessly around the ring.
Within moments the ring was filled with people; between Pat and Mike with the Wamma belt, Fedor's people, Jerry Millen, Donald Trump, Oscar De La Hoya and more, it was packed! I jumped on the apron to get some photos of the melee and the rest of press row followed suit. The chaos took quite some time to clear out and calm down for the last and final fight of the night.
Jay Hieron and Jason High had been set to fight on the HD Net undercard. I guess they ran out of time and weren't going to have the fight at all. Then it was delegated to the end of the card, unfortunately. But, at least they got to fight instead of having the bout be scrapped completely. It wasn't much of a fight as Jay Hieron KO'd Jason High a minute into the first round. 4 knock outs on the card in one night? Friggin' awesome!
Since I had missed the Undercard of the event, Esther Lin was kind enough to share her photos with me. Here are the first 4 fights from the HD Net undercard!
I met up with Rara and Krista at the press conference but we didn't stay. We were hungry and would be hopping around to a ton of parties so we headed back to the hotel and on the way we stopped at Weinerschnitzel for a quick bite (yummy pretzel dog). We ran up to the room to change and clean up and then headed to the lobby to eat our food and watch all the commotion of fans, fighters, friends, and family.
We were supposed to head to Lucky Strike for the official Affliction Afterparty, but we ended up heading to Fullerton first for Jay Hieron's afterparty at Continental. All the Vegas fighters went, including Randy and Kim Couture, as well as Gina Carano. The venue was very tiny and I was so crowded that I grabbed my small group and we bounced out after 15 minutes. We had a number of spots to hit so it wasn't a big deal.
Our next stop was Sutra in Costa Mesa for the Hitman Fight Gear Afterparty. Hitman Dan came out and met us at the door and took us to the VIP where Erik Apple was sitting. We spotted Jake Shields for a moment and tried to drag him off to the next party with us. AS we were heading out the door, Babalu walked in with his small group of friends. He was happy as can be and gave every single one of us a huge hug.
We continued on to the Sand Box in Huntington Beach where Josh Barnett was having his afterparty. I had been texting the promoter as I was arriving but didn't hear back. As I got to the door, the owner told the bouncer not to let anyone else in. So I was stuck outside trying to get a hold of Erek to bring me in to take pics. I finally got it cleared and grabbed some photos of Josh hanging out in the emptying club with a circle of friends and his mom. They didn't let my friends in with me so I snapped my pics and then ran back to the car.
We made tracks back to the hotel for my favorite part of the night; All the drunkards coming back to the hotel from their adventures! And the lobby was full of people including Babalu's whole crew. He dragged a group of us up to his room to party. I was over it rather quickly and we took an elevator back to the lobby. What we found was a rambunctious, Paul Buentello who dragged us back into the elevator. We found ourselves on the 19th floor again (same as Babalu's room) and then it became apparent that Babalu's room, 1924 was their destination. I left again and we made ourselves comfortable on the couches in the lobby. It was about 4 am by this time and it was time for bed. I stopped a moment to help Horodecki haggle with the pizza delivery guy before heading upstairs to sleep.
Sunday, January 26th, 2009
I was up at 10am trying to get all the photos organized, pack my bag and get ready to head to San Diego. I finally dragged my duffle bag to the lobby by 12:30. As we were chatting with Shannon Knapp from Affliction, Fedor walked into the lobby. In the back of my head, I heard a voice yelling "Carpe Diem!" and I grabbed Rara and we ran over to get a photo with him. George and Goze from Tagg Radio were nearby and had him sign one of Evan Shoman's drawings. I felt like a total groupie when it was all done, lol!
We packed up the car and Rara drove while I worked on photos. We made a stop in Carlsbad at my friend Jeff's house so I could upload the photos before heading to PB to grab some Teriyaki Plates at Big Kahuna's again. We pulled into the arena parking lot around 3:45 as the first fight was starting. I grabbed my press credential and ran inside to the cage.
The first two fights I saw ended rather quickly; Jesse Lennox defeated Blas Avena in the first part of the second round, and Scott Jorgenson defeated Frank Gomez in just over a minute with a guillotine choke. Local favorite Dominic Cruz went toe to toe for three full rounds against Ian McCall; Cruz walked away with the unanimous decision. The next two after it also ended quickly with Edgar Garcia taking out Miura in a minute 18 seconds, and then Ben Henderson guillotined Anthony Njokuani in the first minute of round two. As a result of all the short fights, there was a lot of time in between each one to relax.
The main card started and continued on with short fights as Jose Aldo defeated local favorite Rolando Perez at the end of round 1. Jose then ran out the cage and up into the stands where he started dancing much to the displeasure of the CA Commission. They dragged him back down to the cage rather quickly. Danillo Villefort spent most of the first round trying to secure a leg lock before he took Mike Campbell's back, flattened him out, and then rained punches down until the referee stepped in.
Because of their last fight, many expected Urijah Faber vs Jens Pulver to go longer than it did. 1:34 into the first round had Jens tapping to Urijah's guillotine choke. Jens was in tears in the cage as he was asked the question, "How do you think you can continue fighting after three losses in a row?" He answered, "I'm asking myself the same question." Through encouragement from the fans, he said, "F that, i'm going to keep fighting!" The fans cheered wildly at his response.
Jamie Varner and Donald Cerrone stepped into the cage and I watched as for almost three full rounds, Jamie held a steady hand over Cowboy. Cowboy just kept coming and didn't give up! At the end of the fifth round, an illegal knee to the head stopped the action in the cage, and Jamie was deemed unfit to continue so it went to the judges scorecard. Jamie won the fight via split decision. The fans voiced their displeasure at Jamie's inability to continue, and cheered cowboy in his speech in the cage. It was a rather abrupt end to the night.
I packed up and made my way to the press conference to catch Urijah before he headed back to the hotel. I sent off some photos to media outlets that I had deadlines with and then headed out to parking lot where Krista and Rara were waiting in my car. We made our way downtown to the Westin to meet up with Urijah.
We went to his room to go get changed to go out that night and soon after we arrived, Sherdog was there to interview him. We didn't have time to go eat, instead were ushered downstairs by his manager to the waiting limo outside. I spotted Jens with his new baby boy as his family was heading to dinner. How damn cute!! The limo took us the short distance to Belo Nightclub on 4th and E St.
We walked down the back stairs of the club and were escorted to a VIP area in the main room. This was a private party thrown for Urijah by No Fear Energy Drink. To get on the list, you had to have emailed earlier before the event. The VIP was slammed within a few minutes of us arriving. I stuck around to shoot some photos before escaping out to Red Circle next door.
Red Circle was where Jamie's afterparty was supposed to be held, sponsored by Hitman Fight Gear. Jamie spent most of the night in the hospital so wasn't there, but many of his friends and industry people were. After hanging out for a bit (god, there was so much more room to move there) I grabbed the girls and we took off to Submission bar for Cowboy's afterparty sponsored by Tapout. It was a five block walk to get there, but my dumb ass took us the wrong direction at first.
It was after 12:30 by the time we arrived. I wandered around the club grabbing photos of the people and fighters I saw there. All of a sudden a new crew of people showed up; apparently there was a downstairs section of the club that I didn't know about. I went into the dark basement and found a lot of the San Diego fighters hanging out down there. When I made it back upstairs, I found Cowboy hanging out with the Tapout guys.
At 1am, I got a text from Krista who had left to Red Circle before me. "Get over here, Kid Yamamoto wants you to take a photo of him with Urijah!" I bounced out of the club and speed walked back to Red Circle. I guess the door guy at the club didn't know who Kid was. Luckily Brad (Ian McCall's brother) and Bailey spotted him and they let him in. As I walked up, they were coming out of the club. We walked down to Belo (which is next door to Red Circle) and made a beeline to Urijah's VIP that he wasn't in. He wasn't far away though; hanging out instead at the bar with friends. Urijah and Kid hugged each other like long lost friends before turning to take a photo for me. Urijah bought Kid a shot which they toasted each other with and then downed.
The lights came up in the club and the security started pushing everyone out the door. Urijah and Kid were brought over to meet Stephen Dorff (remember, the mean, young, vampire from Blade 2?) before everyone was kicked out of the club. It took another 30 minutes or so to get everyone in cabs headed back to the hotel. Brad and Bailey dropped me off there, and Krista and Rara left with them up to Huntington Beach.
I dropped my stuff off in Urijah's room before heading back to the lobby where a huge throng of fighters and their friends were hanging out in the elevator area. We hung out there for at least an hour and I watched Tanya Evinger try and fight half the guys there as a number of us looked on. Jamie came downstairs on one crutch with his hand in a cast. Apparently his foot was broken and both needed surgery but he had to wait to get back to Arizona to do it the next day. As the lobby cleared out, he went back to Urijah's room with me to look at some of the photos. There were a number of people in the room, but I only hung out for a bit longer before getting on the road to Carlsbad. I crashed out at my friend's house up there because I was headed to the Compound in Oceanside to do a Clinch Gear Shoot the next day.
I was hurting when I woke up monday morning. I don't drink but all the running around was catching up. Thank god it was almost over! I got a little bit of work done before I packed my stuff and headed over to the Compound in Oceanside. Somewhere around 1am we changed the plans; we were originally supposed to shoot at Alliance in Chula Vista but Eric from Alliance told me they were all going to The Compound. So I pulled in 30 minutes late to find Paul from Fight Magazine doing a shoot and the gym totally packed. At 1pm, one of the classes ended, so I started to set up my backdrops to find that I had forgotten part of my backdrop stands. I started getting frustrated but kept telling myself, there's a solution for this somewhere.
Someone (Manny i think) came up with the bright idea to call Hans from Triump United. Their offices were right across the street from the gym. I called Ryan Loco, and he asked Hans if I could use the back drop stands. In spite of the fact it was for a competing clothing company, they were gracious and sad yes. I ran over there to set up and then the fighters I was shooting, Phil Green and Paul Bradley, came over soon after. As I was waiting, I got a chance to meet Roy, who was the winner of Triumph United's all expense paid trip to Vegas for UFC 94.
The shoot went smoothly and then I drove back to Vegas. I am going to include a few funny photos here from the day and then finish off the blog. Note: I try to make my shoots as fun as possible as you can see here. These aren't the real pics of the shoot, these are only the ones in between..
I'm tired of writing and this was a long one! It's tuesday of fight week and I can only imagine it's about to get crazy. If any of you are going to be in Vegas for UFC 94, hit me up. I'm having a Birthday and Fight Pre Party at Prive on Friday night... Whoo hoo! Done!
