FIGHT NIGHT!!!
Welcome to Vegas!!!
We woke up Saturday @ noon and I asked Amanda what she wanted to do today. "I thought we were gonna try to get tix for the fight tonight?" Oh snap...that's right. The Bernard Hopkins/Joe Calzaghe title fight was that night and I told her I'd try to land us some tickets. The fight was taking place at the Thomas Mack Center (home of the UNLV Runnin' Rebels) and should be a great fight. So why not, right? Provided we can land tickets for the price that I want to pay.
So I get dressed and hop online and check out both craigslist and eBay. It's now @ 12:30pm and the fight starts at 6:45pm local time, since it's being broadcast on HBO, live. So I see adds for tix for like $800/ea and such and heh, no. But I see one on ebay that offers $1500/ea tickets for $600/each. Well, it's not 5 hours til fight time and I send him a message saying I'll buy a pair for $300, total. I also made a couple of calls to craigslist listings and said the same. I figure $0.10 on the dollar is fair, being so close to the actual event. I figure the scalpers and brokers would rather make something for the tickets, right? Well, a couple of them said no, but to call back later. The cat I left a message for thru eBay called me back and we agreed on section 106, Row M, two tickets (lower bowl, center of the ring), for $300 total. He asked if I could meet his guy on the Strip. I said, no, that I'd meet him at the main entrance of the Thomas Mack center. He agreed and I knew that doors opened at 1:45 and that there were 7(!!!) fights on the undercard so we said 2pm. He agreed and we got ready to go check out the fights!!!
I was still a bit apprehensive, getting SUCH a good deal on the tix that they might be counterfeit, but that's why I wanted to meet by the entrance so that I could get the tix scanned before I paid him and make sure everything was on the up-n-up. Plus, if they were legit tickets, he shouldn't mind. So we head out and he texts me to let me know he can make it at 230pm. Ok, no problem. Gives us time to grab a quick bite then head to the TM Center.
We park at the back of the parking lot, near one of the exits and start walking toward the main entrance. "Nick" calls and tells me what he's wearing and we meet by the escalators heading to the main entrance. I ask if he has a problem is I take one of the tickets up to get scanned and if it's all good, Amanda would pay him the money. He says sure and I get it scanned and we're all set. I give Amanda the thumbs up and she hands him the money and we're in! I also asked if he usually gets tickets to the major fights here and he said yes, so I have a hookup now it seems. Good deal!
So we walk around the concourse and I sneak a peak inside one of the entrance ways and holy shit we're gonna have some good seats...
We finally find our section and just wow. We were like 25 rows behind ring-side and had an incredible view of the ring. It was pretty empty during the early undercard fights so we moved down pretty close and enjoyed the first few fights. We went and bought a brew and some dogs and it seemed as though most of the inhabitants of Wales were inside the Thomas Mack Center. I swear that we were out numbered 3:1, Welsh to American. I know they travel well, but fuck me people. And they were hilarious. We met a few of them and had a great time.
So the place started filling up, so we headed back to our 'real' seats and as we're sitting there watching the 6th of the 7 undercard fights (Audley Harrison was the only real *name* fighting on the undercard, mostly a sad undercard, really), former Heavyweight Champion Chris Byrd and his wife walked by, down to their seats. About that time, Amanda points out that she really liked Chris' wife's hair. See, she's been looking for a good place to get her hair 'did' since we moved out here to Vegas and has not been able to, yet. So about 2 minutes later, I say, "So you really liked her hair, eh?" She says, yes, she really did. Ok cool...
So I head down to where Chris Byrd and his wife are sitting and say something to the effect of, "Excuse me, Mr. Byrd, I hope I'm not intruding but y'all just walked past us and my girlfriend really likes your wife's haircut. I was wondering, do y'all live here in Vegas?" He has this look on his face, at this point, of, Um, oh, ok you're not here to talk to me, cool. "Yes, we do". Nice... So I look at his wife and ask, "Would you mind tellling me where you get your hair done then? We just moved here and she's looking for a place to get her hair done and hasn't found one yet..." At this point they both kinda laugh and she then proceeds to ask if I'm familiar with the Henderson area (score!) and gives me a reference and a phone number and tells me to just tell her that she referred me. "Um, do I just say that Chris Byrd's wife referred me?" "Yeah, that'll do it!" LOL. During all of this, Chris and I are bullshitting about his upcoming fight on ESPN's Friday Night Fights and how they are promoting his opponent: 'The always dangerous Shaun George'. I joked with him that that means that he's gonna get his ass kicked. He got a good laugh at that. BTW, at first glance I didn't recognize Chris as he's dropped a shitton of weight dropping down to Light Heavyweight from Heavyweight, so he's a LOT smaller than I expected.
We then got to talking about the Hopkins/Calzaghe fight and I asked who he liked. He said he really didn't know because although Hopkins is getting old, he still knows how to win and although Calzaghe is moving up in weight, he's still the bigger guy between them. He thought Calzaghe might win, but that it should be a good fight.
I thanked them for the reference and their time and went back to our seats. Now, prior to this, there was a guy two seats over from us who we had been talking to during the last fight and he was wide-eyed that I had gone down there and chatted w/ them for the better part of 5 minutes and I came back and told the story to he and Amanda and they both got a kick out of it. Good times.
A little later during the Audley Harrison snoozefest (read: final undercard fight), I went down ringside (or at least like 5 rows from ringside) to get some pictures and it really was a who's who of A-list fighters and celebrities there. I mean, I KNEW it was going to be, but it was pretty cool seeing all of them. Everyone from Catherine Zeta-Jones (supporting her fellow Welshman Calzaghe) to Jay-Z, Sugar Ray Leonard, Winky Wright, Marco Antonio Barrera, Sly Stallone and a ton of others. So after the final undercard fight the place was really starting to fill up and Amanda came down to see all of the "beautiful people" and we were having a good time BS'ing with some of the punters down there. I kept my eye on a block of seats that was about 10 rows behind ringside that had been open the entire time. Fuck it, I said, and I grabbed Amanda's hand and we plunked down in two of the seats, dead center, like we owned them. :)
We never had to move the rest of the night. People all around us were being asked to vacate their seats and the real seat owners were arriving (some as late as the 6th round...I mean, really?!?), but not us. I guess I run good at life.
Click the pic below for the photo album from the fight!
I'm sure you've already heard the results, but Joe Calzaghe won in a split decision. I think that it was a 2 point win for Calzaghe, as I was scoring the fight. I'm not sure what fight that Adelaide Byrd was watching, but she's been a pretty horrible judge for a long time now. At least two of them got it right and the right guy won.
That said, the atmosphere was just electric in the Thomas Mack Center last night. The Welsh were doing all they could to energize Calzaghe and he was returning the favor by just dictating all of the action. We completely enjoyed ourselves and had an absolute blast at the fights last night and can not wait for the next one. Cotto/Margarito should be awesome, but if Floyd Mayweather stops dodging Miguel Cotto, I'm going to do whatever it takes to get us tickets to that fight. That should be one helluva fight!
God, are we loving Vegas!!!
We woke up Saturday @ noon and I asked Amanda what she wanted to do today. "I thought we were gonna try to get tix for the fight tonight?" Oh snap...that's right. The Bernard Hopkins/Joe Calzaghe title fight was that night and I told her I'd try to land us some tickets. The fight was taking place at the Thomas Mack Center (home of the UNLV Runnin' Rebels) and should be a great fight. So why not, right? Provided we can land tickets for the price that I want to pay.
So I get dressed and hop online and check out both craigslist and eBay. It's now @ 12:30pm and the fight starts at 6:45pm local time, since it's being broadcast on HBO, live. So I see adds for tix for like $800/ea and such and heh, no. But I see one on ebay that offers $1500/ea tickets for $600/each. Well, it's not 5 hours til fight time and I send him a message saying I'll buy a pair for $300, total. I also made a couple of calls to craigslist listings and said the same. I figure $0.10 on the dollar is fair, being so close to the actual event. I figure the scalpers and brokers would rather make something for the tickets, right? Well, a couple of them said no, but to call back later. The cat I left a message for thru eBay called me back and we agreed on section 106, Row M, two tickets (lower bowl, center of the ring), for $300 total. He asked if I could meet his guy on the Strip. I said, no, that I'd meet him at the main entrance of the Thomas Mack center. He agreed and I knew that doors opened at 1:45 and that there were 7(!!!) fights on the undercard so we said 2pm. He agreed and we got ready to go check out the fights!!!
I was still a bit apprehensive, getting SUCH a good deal on the tix that they might be counterfeit, but that's why I wanted to meet by the entrance so that I could get the tix scanned before I paid him and make sure everything was on the up-n-up. Plus, if they were legit tickets, he shouldn't mind. So we head out and he texts me to let me know he can make it at 230pm. Ok, no problem. Gives us time to grab a quick bite then head to the TM Center.
We park at the back of the parking lot, near one of the exits and start walking toward the main entrance. "Nick" calls and tells me what he's wearing and we meet by the escalators heading to the main entrance. I ask if he has a problem is I take one of the tickets up to get scanned and if it's all good, Amanda would pay him the money. He says sure and I get it scanned and we're all set. I give Amanda the thumbs up and she hands him the money and we're in! I also asked if he usually gets tickets to the major fights here and he said yes, so I have a hookup now it seems. Good deal!
So we walk around the concourse and I sneak a peak inside one of the entrance ways and holy shit we're gonna have some good seats...
We finally find our section and just wow. We were like 25 rows behind ring-side and had an incredible view of the ring. It was pretty empty during the early undercard fights so we moved down pretty close and enjoyed the first few fights. We went and bought a brew and some dogs and it seemed as though most of the inhabitants of Wales were inside the Thomas Mack Center. I swear that we were out numbered 3:1, Welsh to American. I know they travel well, but fuck me people. And they were hilarious. We met a few of them and had a great time.
So the place started filling up, so we headed back to our 'real' seats and as we're sitting there watching the 6th of the 7 undercard fights (Audley Harrison was the only real *name* fighting on the undercard, mostly a sad undercard, really), former Heavyweight Champion Chris Byrd and his wife walked by, down to their seats. About that time, Amanda points out that she really liked Chris' wife's hair. See, she's been looking for a good place to get her hair 'did' since we moved out here to Vegas and has not been able to, yet. So about 2 minutes later, I say, "So you really liked her hair, eh?" She says, yes, she really did. Ok cool...
So I head down to where Chris Byrd and his wife are sitting and say something to the effect of, "Excuse me, Mr. Byrd, I hope I'm not intruding but y'all just walked past us and my girlfriend really likes your wife's haircut. I was wondering, do y'all live here in Vegas?" He has this look on his face, at this point, of, Um, oh, ok you're not here to talk to me, cool. "Yes, we do". Nice... So I look at his wife and ask, "Would you mind tellling me where you get your hair done then? We just moved here and she's looking for a place to get her hair done and hasn't found one yet..." At this point they both kinda laugh and she then proceeds to ask if I'm familiar with the Henderson area (score!) and gives me a reference and a phone number and tells me to just tell her that she referred me. "Um, do I just say that Chris Byrd's wife referred me?" "Yeah, that'll do it!" LOL. During all of this, Chris and I are bullshitting about his upcoming fight on ESPN's Friday Night Fights and how they are promoting his opponent: 'The always dangerous Shaun George'. I joked with him that that means that he's gonna get his ass kicked. He got a good laugh at that. BTW, at first glance I didn't recognize Chris as he's dropped a shitton of weight dropping down to Light Heavyweight from Heavyweight, so he's a LOT smaller than I expected.
We then got to talking about the Hopkins/Calzaghe fight and I asked who he liked. He said he really didn't know because although Hopkins is getting old, he still knows how to win and although Calzaghe is moving up in weight, he's still the bigger guy between them. He thought Calzaghe might win, but that it should be a good fight.
I thanked them for the reference and their time and went back to our seats. Now, prior to this, there was a guy two seats over from us who we had been talking to during the last fight and he was wide-eyed that I had gone down there and chatted w/ them for the better part of 5 minutes and I came back and told the story to he and Amanda and they both got a kick out of it. Good times.
A little later during the Audley Harrison snoozefest (read: final undercard fight), I went down ringside (or at least like 5 rows from ringside) to get some pictures and it really was a who's who of A-list fighters and celebrities there. I mean, I KNEW it was going to be, but it was pretty cool seeing all of them. Everyone from Catherine Zeta-Jones (supporting her fellow Welshman Calzaghe) to Jay-Z, Sugar Ray Leonard, Winky Wright, Marco Antonio Barrera, Sly Stallone and a ton of others. So after the final undercard fight the place was really starting to fill up and Amanda came down to see all of the "beautiful people" and we were having a good time BS'ing with some of the punters down there. I kept my eye on a block of seats that was about 10 rows behind ringside that had been open the entire time. Fuck it, I said, and I grabbed Amanda's hand and we plunked down in two of the seats, dead center, like we owned them. :)
We never had to move the rest of the night. People all around us were being asked to vacate their seats and the real seat owners were arriving (some as late as the 6th round...I mean, really?!?), but not us. I guess I run good at life.
Click the pic below for the photo album from the fight!
I'm sure you've already heard the results, but Joe Calzaghe won in a split decision. I think that it was a 2 point win for Calzaghe, as I was scoring the fight. I'm not sure what fight that Adelaide Byrd was watching, but she's been a pretty horrible judge for a long time now. At least two of them got it right and the right guy won.
That said, the atmosphere was just electric in the Thomas Mack Center last night. The Welsh were doing all they could to energize Calzaghe and he was returning the favor by just dictating all of the action. We completely enjoyed ourselves and had an absolute blast at the fights last night and can not wait for the next one. Cotto/Margarito should be awesome, but if Floyd Mayweather stops dodging Miguel Cotto, I'm going to do whatever it takes to get us tickets to that fight. That should be one helluva fight!
God, are we loving Vegas!!!
posted by SirFelixCat at 7:34 PM
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