I came out of the stall and found the guy at the next sink scrubbing green paint off his face.
“Security’s making me wash it off,” he said.
I looked at his Ninja Turtles costume, streaked green where the paint had smeared from poor application, then back up at him. The entire back of his bald head was still green.
The scariest thing about Halloween at the UFC Meta Apex was how few people dressed up. The UFC had put out a long list of what wasn’t allowed, including anything that obscured the face, and it showed. Most fans came in their usual fight-night gear, and the handful in costume didn’t exactly go all out. The rule said nothing about the back of your head.
I was seated between two groups: two Instagram content creators in costume–one a Minion, the other a maskless Deadpool (Alonzo Hernandez), devoid of his weapons–and a British mum and her teenage son.
“The price for nosebleeds in the UK is bloody insane,” the teen told me. “You’re looking at £500 minimum.”
“Trust me, it’s just as expensive here,” I replied.
“But look at this,” he interjected. “Front row for only $450?” He gestured emphatically at the distance between us and the cage. “How can you beat that?”
I chuckled. I’ve written previously about what a unique venue the UFC Apex is.
“The fans on TV hate it,” I told him, “but there’s nothing like being here in person.”
The kid had a large bag of merch under his seat to haul back with him to the UK. Both he and his mom looked excited to be there. I never tell people like this that their only experience of live MMA and the UFC may be an “Apex slop” card, as people have taken to calling them. Besides, there are usually at least a few good fights to be seen. And live MMA is a whole different beast from watching on the couch at home, where you always have a perfect sightline and the ability to pause, rewind, and replay at will. Turn your head for one second and you miss a massive KO. Get a camera crewman standing right in front of you, and suddenly following the ground game gets a whole lot more complicated. But the atmosphere is unparalleled.
I love being seated next to someone attending the Apex for the first time, so that I, the grizzled Apex veteran, can give them the lay of the land.
“Watch this,” I said, smirking at the kid.
Massive 13-0 prospect Lucia Szabová strode out of the cage after a TKO victory over Tainara Lisboa from back mount. The camera crew followed her, the camera light illuminating her face in the darkened building. She was grinning wide, face and body streaked with sweat and bruises, her hair disheveled. I stood up, leaned over the barrier just as she was about to walk by, and held out my fist. I felt the padded glove bump mine. When I turned back around, the kid looked elated. Every single fight after that one, he was up on his feet, phone in hand, recording each fist bump he got as the fighters walked by.
By the time the match between Piera Rodriguez and Talita Alencar rolled around, someone from production had placed a skeleton in the area reserved for UFC fighters and their guests, an area I had also pointed out to the British teen. Then something spooky happened mid-match: half the lights flickered and went out. For a moment, I thought it actually might be part of the Halloween fun, because it was certainly thematic. But then I saw a lone strobe light spinning in place and realized that couldn’t be the case. A production employee pointed at the lighting rig, as if to ask, “What is going on?” and that confirmed it for me. Besides, the lights over the Octagon itself had gone out, which would never fly intentionally in a commissioned match.
Later, a source from the UFC told me there had actually been a power outage, and they had to run the whole night on backup power and almost lost the entire card. Which brings me to the next frightening incident.
It was really fucking hot in there. I’m not even going to mince words about it. I had worn a sweater, because I knew from my time in Iraq that the desert gets cold in the winter, and I was very uncomfortable. The MMA content creators in costume to my left were constantly complaining about the heat. DC had a little fan on the commentator’s desk pointed straight at his bald, sweaty head, and he seemed annoyed all night as multiple fans tried calling out to him for autographs or photos. I approached a UFC employee I knew who had previously complained about the climate controls in the Apex and said, “Man, you really didn’t lie about them turning the AC off.” That’s when I put two and two together and realized the AC probably doesn’t work on backup power. This also led to one of the funniest exchanges of the night.
Deadpool: “God, it’s hot in here.”
Me: “Look, Hunter Campbell is right there. Go talk to him. He can probably get them to change the thermostat.”
Deadpool: “That guy is wearing a fucking jacket! He’s the last person I’m going to ask!”
Me: “Good point. But then again, maybe the heat in here is his fault. Perhaps the dude is just perpetually cold.”
Sometime during the night, I ran into a fellow media member I had shared a table with at Tuff-N-Uff 158–a UNLV student (@Ronins.mma) trying to make a name for himself on social media doing MMA content. Please follow him.
Thoughts on the fights:
Rodriguez looked good in the 1st with crisp striking and even took Alencar’s back. In the 2nd, Rodriguez again displayed crisp striking, but this time Alencar took Rodriguez’s back. In the 3rd, both exchanged some good strikes, and it ended in a 30-27 decision for Rodriguez.
The guys in costume to my left were hype as hell for Joe Kropschot vs. Nick Klein.
“What’s the deal?” I asked.
“Oh, I just did an interview with him!” Deadpool said. “Joe’s the man!”
Throughout the fight, you could hear them screaming, “Let’s go, Joe!”
The 1st round started out with a lot of rolling and grappling. In the 2nd, that grappling paid off when Kropschot got an armbar submission from the inverted triangle.
“That’s some Joe-Jitsu!” Deadpool said.
When Kropschot came bounding down the walkway, he recognized the men in costume and took a moment to celebrate his victory with them.
Zach Reese vs. Mickey Gall came next. You can never call a Mickey Gall walkout boring when he comes out to “Hey Mickey” by Toni Basil. Paddy Pimblett has long capitalized on the success of a good walkout song.
Reese landed an eye poke on Gall in the 1st and was surprisingly docked a point by Herb Dean. Reese looked rangy and threw a lot of kicks.
“He’s long, like Carlos Prates,” someone behind me said.
In the 2nd, Reese landed a crotch shot on Gall and immediately looked as if he feared having another point taken. The two fighters then got into a good back-and-forth, but Reese looked dominant overall. The 3rd round was close, but Gall wore more damage on his face, and he wasn’t going down.
The same person who said Reese looked like Carlos Prates then commented on the way Mickey Gall wore the front of his shorts tucked under his underwear.
“Hey Mickey with the shorts!” the man joked.
This didn’t stop Mickey Gall from losing by a 28-27 decision.
Aljamain Sterling started cheering when Julian “Juicy J” Erosa walked out for his retirement match. Erosa had previously issued a statement explaining why he wanted to end his career now, going out on top. Two South Korean men in the crowd were clearly there for his opponent, Jeong Yeong Lee, waving the flag to the point that security had to tell them to calm down. They left shortly thereafter, devastated, when Erosa got a TKO at 1:31 of the 1st with an overhand right followed by ground strikes.
Erosa exploded after his win, flinging his mouthpiece into the crowd, where a spectator caught it. The camera focused on his wife and child in the stands, who looked like they wanted to cry from the start. Then they went into the cage and actually did cry as DC talked to Juicy about his retirement. The South Koreans probably cried too.
Rodrigo Sezinando vs. Theodor Berggren saw Berggren control most of the 1st round, which ended with a brutal spinning backfist by Sezinando and a late knee/kick. In the 2nd, Sezinando carried that momentum and secured top position after multiple takedown attempts, although his ground-and-pound came across as somewhat anemic. What wasn’t anemic, however, was a nasty elbow Sezinando landed from the top, which ended the match by doctor stoppage in his favor when it was revealed Berggren had a split-open lip.
Dakota Hope vs. Francis Marshall saw Marshall get the takedown in the 1st, but after Hope got up, the two traded back-and-forth swings. In the 2nd, Hope got the takedown, Marshall got back up, and the swings continued. The 3rd went the same way, earning Hope a split-decision win.
Deadpool and his friend were once again hyped for the next matchup: Jean-Paul Lebosnoyani vs. Farman Hasanov. I was looking forward to this fight too, as I had liked how JPL looked in previous outings.
“Let’s go, JP!” Deadpool and the Minion shouted.
During the walkouts, an intern rushed over to the commentator table to hand out coffee.
Then the 1st round began, with some excellent back-and-forth between the two fighters and JPL picking it up at the end. In the 2nd, Hasanov slowed down significantly, sucking wind through his mouth in great big gulps. Hasanov looked like he was at his end, falling back against the cage, and Jean-Paul Lebosnoyani slow-walked up to him like a fucking movie villain, holding his arms out like, “Is this all you’ve got?” and fucking SMIRKED at Hasanov right before the bell sounded.
The 3rd round started with chants of “JP! JP! JP!” There was insane action that ended when the ref called over the doctor, as Hasanov’s eye was swollen shut. JPL flopped onto the middle of the canvas and did a “snow angel” right there in the Octagon. Maybe we should call it something more fitting: a “sweat angel.” JPL came out of the cage, hugged his buddies in the fighters’ area, then raised a fist in recognition of Deadpool and the Minion.
Santos squared came next with Luana Santos vs. Yana Santos. They grappled against the fence for a while in the 1st until the ref broke them up. In the 2nd, there was some striking before Brazilian Luana Santos took her opponent’s back. The fight ended in a unanimous decision win for Luana Santos.
Cody Durden vs. Ode Osbourne had the British teen next to me rooting for Ode. Osbourne got the first takedown, and Durden answered with one of his own. Durden tried to slip in a few chokes between some ground-and-pound. By the 2nd, Durden looked gassed. In the 3rd, Osbourne engaged in heavy grappling, but Durden won by unanimous decision.
Jacobe Smith vs. Randy Brown was a fun one. Brown used his range to strike and stay out of Smith’s way, but Smith went in for the takedown, secured it, and followed up with grappling from top position. In the 2nd, Smith had no problem closing the distance on his much taller opponent, securing another takedown, landing elbows, and cutting open Brown’s face. Cutman Tate, ever the joker, made gestures and comments to his colleague about having to go in there and treat the bloodied fighter. In the 3rd, Brown landed some good shots, but Smith once again marched in, got the takedown, and landed more ground-and-pound for a unanimous decision win.
By now, everyone knows what happened in the fight between Renato Moicano and Tom Nolan, which Nolan won by TKO via ground-and-pound in the 3rd round. I have been wrong on the internet before, and I will be wrong again. I had been at the Apex for something like six or seven hours at that point and was getting a little fatigued, so I wasn’t super upset when the fight was stood up. I wasn’t one of the people booing in the crowd, but I didn’t protest the stand-up like Aljamain Sterling did, either. In the past, I have enjoyed highly technical fights that went to decision, or that had long stretches on the ground before one of the fighters finally earned a hard-fought submission. I have to be honest: this fight wasn’t shaping up to be one of them.
For now, I will end this thought on the fight by sharing two videos that I thought provided a lot of insight into the controversial decision by referee Dan Miragliotta:
https://youtu.be/xAhi0iwi6Zo?is=5bQ4cUBe2WmOx2EI
https://youtu.be/oMxpXhOUTEQ?is=MsoGATArpShuEhuc
As the crowd filed out of the Apex after another successful card, the British mum turned to me and the two in costume.
“Thank you for making this night special for us. Truly.“