Have you ever had a favorite band you used to see at small venues? It felt intimate, personal, tailored just for you. You’d chat with fellow fans about how great it was to be in on something, and eventually the band started recognizing you back — never quite friends, but casually known. You’d talk to them and the roadies outside during smoke breaks, beer in hand. It felt like insider access, and it felt like something you’d never want to give up.

Then the band “sells out.” Suddenly they’re playing arenas. The casual access disappears. You’re genuinely happy for them — everyone deserves to experience a band you love — but there’s a quiet sense of betrayal underneath the happiness, one you know you’re not really entitled to feel. That’s gatekeeping, and you know it.

That’s exactly what happened with the UFC Apex. Bigger. More corporate — rebranded with Meta’s name on the building. More accessible to fans who never had a shot at it before. And I’m the guy who has to admit he misses when it wasn’t.

What Changed

Walk through the doors now, and the differences start small. A giant, light-up blue Meta logo competes for space with the red UFC one outside. Inside, a new interactive exhibit lets you scan yourself into an AI-generated fight poster with your favorite fighter, in the spot where a real fight night poster used to hang. The UFC store, once occupying the whole end of the lobby, has been squeezed into a smaller alcove. The other photo-op poster, the one with fighter mannequins, is gone too. The one constant: the large wall-sized poster near the bathrooms and concessions.

The real transformation is in the room that holds the cage. The red and blue crossbeams that used to hug the walls are gone, and the space has been pushed out and upward. Black fabric walls have been replaced with cream-colored surfaces and vertical strobing lights in red and blue. The press area, once open, is now fenced off and under security control. A new mezzanine, reserved for VIP guests, sits above the entrance side (I watched announcers use it for interviews during UFC BJJ 10). The octagon still sits dead center, exactly where it’s always been.

And the seats. Where the Apex once held 609, it now holds 1,113. Nearly double.

Access and Cost

The math on tickets tells its own story. I paid roughly $350 for a row-three seat at UFC Vegas 120. For Dana White’s Contender Series, I paid $25 for front row (about $42 after fees). Compare that to the old Apex, where the cheapest seats ran $350, and getting in at all meant having UFC Fight Club presale access or gambling on resale. More seats means a lower price floor, and a lower price floor means more people get to walk through those doors at all.

What hasn’t changed is how close you can still get to the people who matter. During the Contender Series, I watched a man sitting next to me get a replica UFC Freedom 250 belt signed by Dana White, no hassle at all. He got a trading card signed by Diego Lopes the same night. In my experience, fighters at the Apex are still generous with their time, happy to stop for a photo or an autograph before moving on. That part of the old Apex, the part that made it feel like you were somewhere real, hasn’t disappeared. It’s just competing with a lot more people for the same handful of moments.

What’s Lost

I already told you I’m the fan who has to admit he misses the small room. What I haven’t fully said is what that costs me, specifically.

The bathroom lines are longer now. So are the concession lines. Those are minor. What’s harder to name is the shift in the room itself, the loss of a certain familiarity that used to come standard with a smaller crowd and a smaller space. The old Apex felt like watching regional MMA with UFC-level talent, if regional MMA also had incredible sightlines. It made it easy to actually get to know staff and fighters, which matters more to how I report on this sport than almost anything else.

There’s also a cost I don’t think most fans clock, because it’s mine specifically. I deal with sensory issues, including sensory overload, and the new Apex is louder and more charged than the old one in a way I feel physically.

What Stayed the Same

Not everything changed. Parking is exactly as easy (or as beside the point) as it always was, since most people still show up by rideshare. And the air conditioning, crucial for a Vegas summer that regularly hits 111 degrees, still holds up. Some things about the Apex, thankfully, didn’t get the memo about growing up.

What’s Next

With more events landing at the Apex, from UFC BJJ to Adin Ross’s Brand Risk Promotions, the expansion tracks with a building that outgrew its COVID-era footprint. The open question is what the UFC does with that extra room: keep leasing it out to more third parties, or use it to host more of its own events (Zuffa Boxing, anyone?). Either answer probably means more growth, which probably means less of what made the old Apex the old Apex.

I’m not going to pretend the improvements aren’t good for fans as a whole. They are. Die-hards like me, the ones who show up to every Apex event we can get into, are allowed to grumble about the place “selling out.” But grumbling is where it stops. I don’t get to gatekeep a room that was never mine to gatekeep in the first place.

Look for me in the crowd at Week Three of Dana White’s Contender Series. I’ll be the one in a ballcap that says “SD,” or “Sharks,” or some other weird shit. And who knows. Maybe one day I’ll finally apply for press access and get approved.

Stick around for my next post, which will cover my experience of attending Tuff-N-Uff 156.

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It’s fight day, and the fighter for the main bout has just dropped out of the card. Everyone is scrambling. The card must go on. The matchmaker, William ‘Chorizo,’ is calling his backups to see who can fight, and the CEO of EPIC Fighting, Jason Stewart, is calling his guy: Pedro Batista Silva Neto.

Pedro’s already put untold hours into making EPIC look epic—each fight card promo image takes four to ten hours to create from scratch—and this is just another part of his job. Last-minute dropouts come with the territory, and Pedro’s got a game plan for it: work overtime. It doesn’t matter what time it is at home compared to local San Diego time. He’s the guy Jason can rely on, and the guy fans and fighters can rely on for the most up-to-date, professional look for the promotion.

Pedro gets to work, and soon there’s a new fight poster featuring the replacement fighter’s image, with the matchup cards updated to reflect all the new information. He sends them to the print shop EPIC works with, which can churn out promo material with as little as two hours’ notice—just in time for fight night. Then he opens the code editor for EPIC’s website, updates the matches, and edits promotional fight video, if time allows.

Doors open at seven, and fans start arriving. The new fight posters are already front and center, and attendees grab a fight postcard featuring all the updated bouts on their way into the venue. Someone pulls up the EPIC Fighting website on their phone to see which matches are scheduled for the evening, and the replacement fighter is already listed. No one sees the work that goes into making it all come together—for them, it’s just a seamless experience. That’s thanks to Pedro and the rest of the crew at EPIC Fighting.

Twenty-four-year-old Pedro does a little bit of everything: graphic design, web coding, 3D modeling, video editing, and music composition. Anything that has to do with design or creative work for EPIC Fighting, he does it. His role has spanned almost a year, covering EPIC 64 through 66.

But Pedro didn’t get his start in MMA-related creative design. He used to work in sales for an interior design company in Miami before he had to drop that job. Determined to break into screen printing design instead, he spent nine months cold-calling shops everywhere, not just San Diego, but all fifty states and over a hundred cities. What kept him going during that stretch was freelance work he picked up from print shops in Arizona, Nevada, Florida, and Georgia. One of those calls was to Mulado Designs, and though the job wasn't there, it was how he ended up on the radar of Joselin Fuller, a manager at EPIC Fighting, who called him back about a design position.

“‘We’re looking for a designer; could you give us a minute and let’s talk about it?’ I said, ‘Okay, sure, 100%.’ That’s how I first got into it.”

What he didn’t know at the time was that he was the only candidate willing to download a 30-gigabyte file—the archive of work from EPIC’s previous designer—something the other designers in contention for the spot wouldn’t or couldn’t do. Pedro made a few posters, Jason loved them, and Pedro soon became the go-to guy for EPIC’s graphic design.

EPIC’s hexagonal cage presented Pedro with an early challenge: no 3D model of it existed anywhere online, so he built his own, to the cage’s exact real-world dimensions. That model mattered practically, too: Pedro is the one who places sponsors on the cage pads and canvas, a 20-by-18-foot area, before it’s sent out for printing. The same model lets him set keyframes and export video for the broadcasts that air on local San Diego TV, online, and during the livestream. He’s especially proud of a drone shot he produced for the website, showing the branded cage in full 3D.

Pedro brought real print-shop knowledge to the role—print margins, safe areas where no design can go, the four-inch overhang margin the canvas requires. He works across Adobe’s suite (Illustrator, Photoshop, CorelDRAW) as well as Canva and CapCut. He’ll use AI for small elements he integrates into a larger design, but no further—AI isn’t near the quality level he demands. Besides, he loves the work, so why would he outsource it to something that produces an inferior product?

Pedro is from Brazil, the home of modern MMA, so one might assume he’s always been a fan. Not so.

“It’s funny,” he says. “I wasn’t a fan of MMA before. It was coincidental. I didn’t watch MMA; I was more into the NFL and baseball. When this opportunity came up, I suddenly became a fan.”

Now he can’t get enough of it—UFC, PFL, SoCal-based MMA, even BRAVE Combat Federation. He watches all of it, because watching is part of the job.

“What is the UFC doing? What is PFL doing? What are the top promotions doing? I stay tuned to that, especially the visuals, because I want to do better than them. They’re huge; they already have a name, so it’s easier for them to put out a fighter or a hot poster and promote the fight. But we want to create something bigger every year, so I stay tuned to where I can improve, what I can do better than UFC, and what options I have to improve the company.”

When Pedro first started, he didn't know nearly as many of the tricks he'd picked up since. His first task was a poster for EPIC 64. The brief: “Hey, throw these fighters here and there, just do it and make it look nice.” That first poster took sixteen iterations before he was satisfied—and he'll admit it doesn't hold up to what he makes today. He learned on the job, and every last-minute dropout or new arrival became an excuse to hone his craft, all in service of the goal that still drives him: outdoing the top dog. He wants someone to look at a poster and say, “This looks better than the UFC and way cooler.”

Event week is by far Pedro’s busiest. Between last-minute changes and prepping for the next event before the current one has even wrapped—updating the website, prepping promotional materials and the livestream, promoting the pay-per-view—he’s online basically all week, some days running twelve hours. While the event is underway, Pedro monitors the livestream to ensure everything runs smoothly, which he counts as one of the real perks of the job.

Pedro didn’t attend university for any of this—he’s entirely self-taught. But no one looking at the finished product would know it, and that’s exactly how he likes it.

He can’t just sit behind a computer and code, either. Jason relies on him heavily, but Pedro stays in close contact with the rest of the operation too—EPIC’s ads manager, the matchmaker, the venue, and the team running the livestream—since his job depends on knowing what everyone else is doing.

That people-skills side of the job extends to merchandise, too—Pedro handles the calls to produce stickers, signs, and whatever else EPIC needs, often on tight turnarounds.

His creativity has been making a splash. His poster for the fight with Snake The Nate got a huge buzz from the Comic-Con crowd—a jungle theme he says was inspired by Alex “Poatan” Pereira. EPIC’s street team knew exactly where to place the posters, and their movie-studio polish caught the eye of a crowd already primed to respond to something flashy. He’s now designing merch for EPIC too, including an upcoming Jiu-Jitsu line.

That love for the sport has only grown since he took the job, and he goes on deep dives into it—fight breakdowns, fighters, the moves they use. As a Brazilian, his favorite fighter is a Brazilian one: Diego Lopes. He wishes he could get out to see a fight in person, but he lives in rural Brazil, between Rio and São Paulo—a four-hour drive to the nearest big city, and eight hours to Belo Horizonte, where BRAVE MMA is held. Without his laptop, he can’t just pick up and go; setting aside the risks of the trip itself, everything he needs is on his desktop, and he could be needed at a moment’s notice.

“If I don’t love what I’m doing, I’m not going to do it well,” he says.

Still, Pedro dreams of traveling one day. Vegas is on the bucket list—he was struck by UFC Noche at the Sphere. But more than anywhere he wants to go, he wants people to know how hard he works, and that he can build something huge. He wants to be known not just for the work itself, but for trying his best at everything. Above all, he dedicates his life and work to his faith and hopes that, through it, he can be a blessing. He knows not everyone has what it takes, so he tries to carry himself as someone nice and professional. When he pictures people driving out to San Diego for EPIC Fighting, he wants them to come because it’s something unique—and he hopes the promotion grows huge, not just in the US, but around the world. He wants to be part of something like that. He wants the Lord to make it happen, and to be part of something truly epic.

Thank you to Pedro Neto and EPIC Fighting for agreeing to the interview. My next article will focus on my experiences at the newly remodeled UFC Meta Apex in Las Vegas. Until next time.

Correction (Aug 25, 2026): This article originally misspelled Mulado Designs. It has been corrected.

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Many were beckoned to Vegas the week of International Fight Week. They flew and drove from across the U.S. and from around the globe, hoping to see the one-and-only Conor McGregor return to the Octagon to face Max Holloway in a rematch. And the 111-degree Fahrenheit heat didn’t stop anyone from packing T-Mobile Arena for the press conference, the ceremonial weigh-ins, or the bout itself — a sold-out crowd of 20,078 and a record gate of $26.4 million.

Despite Dana White’s claim that no rooms were available in Vegas for International Fight Week, I had no problem booking my stay a month or so in advance, when tickets for UFC 329 went on sale. At a reasonable price, too, in a nice enough hotel in the suburbs of Henderson/Boulder City. When you travel to Vegas as much as I do, you learn to do it on the cheap, and I’ve never been much of one for gambling. (In fact, the woman who checked me in at the hotel & casino balked when I wouldn’t accept the free $25 gift card for the slots). It helped that I got my ticket at face value through the UFC Fight Club presale, and that I only needed one seat (unfortunately, my spouse is not a fight fan — nor a Vegas fan, for that matter). So, I only paid a whopping $750 for a face-value ticket in Section 101, at mid-height of the arena! (Hmm, so that’s how they make those record gate numbers! They raise the prices!)

This being my first International Fight Week in person, I needed a plan for hitting all the events I wanted in the sweltering heat. My time as a U.S. Army serviceman in Iraq would come in handy here — I knew what to expect from extreme dry desert heat in the summer, and how to prepare for it. I wanted peak positioning for the press conference and weigh-ins; this would require waiting an hour or so outside the arena before the doors opened. The first thing they taught us in preparation for the Middle East was to wear long, loose clothing. This keeps the sun off your body and lets sweat evaporate easily from your skin, cooling you down. Direct sun on your skin actually raises your body’s core temperature. So, ditch the shorts the next time you’re in town and it’s baking outside. I brought SPF 50 clothing, SPF 50 sunscreen, a hat, sunglasses, Liquid IV packets, moisture-wicking underwear, and a sun umbrella. Hydration was the key, though (all the convenience stores in Vegas sell massive water bottles with handles on them).

No one really prepares you for how annoying it is to park on the Strip and navigate to where you want to go on foot. This wasn’t my first rodeo in Vegas, and I still had difficulty getting where I needed to go the day of the UFC Hall of Fame induction ceremony and press conference, which had been pushed back an hour — likely so it wouldn’t overlap with Power Slap 21. T-Mobile Arena is located on the Strip and doesn’t have dedicated parking (why the hell not, I’ll never know), requiring one to park in one of the many parking garages nearby and walk. By the time I got to the arena, I had already spent more than enough time in the sun navigating the pedestrian bridges that cross the Strip. Hundreds were in line before me, with a smattering of umbrellas dotting the crowd. Luckily, vendors were set up in the square selling water and beer, and people on foot came through the lines with their buckets of beverages. Even luckier for me, I arrived at the perfect time to get in line right under the shade of one of the few trees. By the time the doors opened, the lines were moving, and we were inside the air conditioning quickly.

Once inside, people quickly moved to get the best seats next to the stage. For the public, this consisted of the seats in the lowest ring, with floor seats reserved for invited family and VIPs. I managed to snag a single seat a few rows up in the leftmost section next to the stage. As the arena began to fill in, fighters and other celebrities would occasionally walk through the pathway in the middle of the floor and next to the barrier. People like Chael Sonnen, Justin Gaethje, and Charles Oliveira were some of the notables (Poatan also got a loud “Chama!” each time he was spotted). In an odd sight, one man kept running down the stairs to the barrier every time a celebrity came by, trying to get his UFC hockey jersey signed. The loudest representation in the audience was not the Irish, but the back-and-forth between the singing, flag-waving French BSD supporters and those there for Paddy “the Baddy” Pimblett.

I’d like to say the UFC Hall of Fame induction ceremony (Jon Anik hosting) was worth going to. It was not: three hours of long speeches, drawn-out Oscar-style transitions, and Hunter Campbell peeking out from behind a pillar like a cave troll in waiting. Dominick Cruz, Demetrious Johnson, and Chris Weidman — among many others — gave heartfelt speeches and deserved the honor, but there was no “we cut you off after thirty seconds” here, and the UFC absolutely knew what it was doing putting the ceremony and the press conference back-to-back. I hate to sound like a dick, but nothing kills crowd energy like a long-ass speech full of tears (full support to men showing emotion in public, however). So I did what I always do at events like that: watch the production crew and try to figure out what their jobs are. One man, seated, held the cable for a large Zamboni-shaped camera on a track, unspooling it and reeling it back in as the camera traversed the floor. He did this for the entire three hour ceremony. It’s one of the things I find most fascinating about live productions (not the fights, you ask? Well, yes, the fights too, obviously).

Watching the production team tear down an entire awards ceremony stage and replace it with the press conference one was interesting. These things are definitely more fragile than they look on TV. When the public press conference finally got underway, the crowd came back to life. Looking around, I saw the UFC’s base demographic heavily represented: young males aged 18–34. No doubt this was their first time seeing McGregor in person, and they wanted to experience the hype of the UFC’s yesteryear, as did I. Still, Paddy — a huge favorite of mine — got a big pop, too. If he had been less deferential to McGregor, he might have kept the audience on his side. The questions from the media, meanwhile, were truly dumb. I understand that they held a private, press-only press conference a day prior, so maybe all the good questions had been asked by then.

When we were let out of T-Mobile Arena, the Paddy supporters and BSD fans met in the middle of the square, continuing their same (albeit friendly) beef from earlier, chanting and waving the flags of their countries. After an exhausting Thursday, I made my way back to the hotel to rest and recuperate.

On Friday, it was time to do it all over again. I had less trouble navigating from the parking garage to the arena this time. Everyone crowded into the shade at the base of the arena rather than standing in orderly lines at each door, and I met a guy from San Diego who recognized my SD hat. They opened the doors early due to the heat, and we made our way in. I wanted to go all the way to the right, and did so (a mistake, I would later find out). I got prime seating once again, but a huge camera on a crane took up most of the view (think of a giant metal fishing pole with a camera on the end). At least they zoomed it over the crowd in a fun way to test it out — but I’m sorry, fellow San Diegan, for leading you astray. The crane camera swung over the stage and got a foot away from the fighters during the face offs. How weird would it be to turn around and bump into that thing?

I had always wanted to see a ceremonial weigh-in in person, and this one did not disappoint. That music they play at every weigh-in? Thunderous. Joe Rogan’s voice? Grating. Dana White came out with Hunter Campbell to lead the face-offs, followed by Sean Shelby and Mick Maynard. Paddy fired up the crowd once again — a crowd that spent the waiting period before the show battling in the stands (aka chanting and waving flags at each other, back and forth). If this was to be a preview of Saturday, I couldn’t wait. Conor and Max came out and looked good (although Conor taking forever to put on his shoes had the crowd chuckling a bit nervously). The stands were noticeably packed to the brim — far more than at other ceremonial weigh-ins I had live-streamed. Then it was over. But I couldn’t stick around for the concert outside in the square, for I had somewhere to be.

Ah, Power Slap. I felt guilty the first time I went to one of these. But don’t knock it before you try it. I took a short walk to the Cosmopolitan, making it just in time for the first bout. The venue is great — every seat has a view. The matches are so quick it almost feels like it’s over too soon. The drinks, plentiful. (Speaking of drinks, while I was in the lobby getting one, I ran into a desperate Michael Chandler looking for the bathroom, and despite me pointing at the very bright green sign indicating where it was, he still couldn’t find it). Dana White and Hunter Campbell were there, since Power Slap is their baby (Dana and the Fertittas are co-founders, while Campbell and Craig Piligian — producer of The Ultimate Fighter — are executive partners with founding equity). Half the crowd seemed to be influencer types, with the whole bottom-floor section next to the stage reserved for them — Nina Drama among them doing her livestream. It’s not exactly my scene. It’s both the douchiest people imaginable on the lower tier and the reddest-of-neck white-trash types in the stands (one of these, a drunk woman, punched me in the back for sitting in front of her and telling her I wouldn’t move). That probably says something about me for being there among them. But — it’s exciting. What can I say? The knockouts are generous (as is the brain damage, I’m sure). It’s like distilling the most explosive moments from MMA—when someone gets finished—and shooting it out of a canon at your face. The clips do not do the live experience justice. And that closed out my Friday.

Then came Saturday, the ultimate day of International Fight Week. I spent the morning at breakfast with an old friend (Blueberry Hill Restaurant — look it up) before heading out to the main event. The last time I had tickets to a numbered UFC event was UFC 270: Ngannou vs. Gane in Anaheim, CA. Since the UFC opened up the Apex to outside crowds, I have been to far more of those than numbered events. I was excited. I was hyped. Who wouldn’t be? Of course I had to get there before the prelims — I wasn’t going to let all the money I paid for that ticket go to waste — but the arena was conspicuously empty at the start of the early prelims (who are you people who pay that much for a ticket and don’t get as much out of it as possible? Then again, I’m the type of person who can never miss the previews at the movie theater, either).

The card was off to a good start. I was sad to see Cody Durden get subbed, but happy for Luke Riley (or Paddy’s protégé, as I like to call him) to get the KO. Gable Steveson looked sloppy but put on an entertaining fight, at least (and that sprawl… Christ). Robert Whittaker’s win drew one of the biggest eruptions of the night. King Green’s matches are never boring, either — his comeback, after looking like he was almost done, was a hell of a lot of fun to see in person.

But speaking of seeing: as an old Millennial who now has to wear glasses, thank god I brought them. Honestly, I couldn’t see as well as I would have liked, since I was on the long end of the arena and mostly watching the jumbotron. Something to note for the next time the UFC brings a numbered event near me (reportedly Crypto.com Arena in Los Angeles this November): be more intentional about exactly where I buy seats. Another gripe: as the arena filled, so did the heat in my section, and having been there since the early prelims, I was feeling done by the time the main card rolled around.

Paddy’s walkout absolutely got me back into it. Yes, the chanting was piped in, but the crowd was also singing along (as was I). His entrances always make the place feel like a club, and he’s so full of energy — how can you not love Paddy? Knowing what a sick grappler he is, I totally had him taking this fight against BSD (seriously, watch all his matches on Fight Pass through his early time on Cage Warriors; he had like one loss early in his career). But I’m also a fan of BSD and his French Special Forces story, and I know he can be a tough opponent, so I was eager to see how it would go, either way. We just had no way of knowing Paddy was going to submit the guy that quickly! I remember being on the edge of my seat, knowing he had the choke in tight. The build-up was tremendous. I was leaning forward. And then the ref grabbed BSD’s arm and dropped it — limp — and the whole fucking arena erupted. I’m sorry to the French couple behind me. I know you were there to support your guy.

After seeing Paddy demolish BSD, we were hyped as fuck for McGregor and Holloway. But McGregor seemed oddly muted. It was a stark contrast to the Paddy entrance, which had the whole arena going. I just remember the shock of seeing him “slip” — once, then twice. Someone next to me said, “Something is wrong.” And it was. When the fight got called off, we were stunned. No one could believe what we had just watched. People began to stand up and slowly file out. There was no loud cheering or chanting, none of what you’d expect after an event of this magnitude — just twenty thousand people trying to process what had happened. Next to me, a kid of perhaps 15, there with his father, looked crushed — forlorn, even. The dad kept trying to make him feel better, but that kid wasn’t going to be told how to feel. Jokingly, I turned to the dad and said, “Well, he could have at least hopped around on one foot like Ullberg,” and the dad looked at me blankly, like he didn’t understand the reference. There were some smatterings of “Paddy the Baddy” chants, but mostly everyone kept quiet. It felt like filing out of the arena after your NHL team had just lost game seven of the playoffs.

Outside, the crowds moved like molasses down the Strip, and to top it all off, they started setting off fireworks all along the Strip from the rooftops of the casinos — in Holloway’s colors. Brilliant, I thought. Wonder if McGregor can see those now?

I pushed past street preachers with microphones and made it to my car, and, perhaps against my better judgment, decided to drive home instead of staying in that city with its excesses and great wins and terrible losses. With the Strip receding behind you, the fading lights become like a memory as you’re enveloped in the darkness. Soon you’ll be past the Mojave Desert and climbing through the mountains, and when you crest the other side of the pass — San Bernardino County spread out below, the air a chill 66 degrees — you’ll know you’re almost home.

And all I got was this stupid cup!

(Until next time. I’ll be reporting on the remodeled Meta Apex sometime after August 8th.)

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