Manly Things at BWWs: UFC Lightweight Championship

by Mike Hanus

So, the five of us spend a lot of time at Buffalo Wild Wings to watch the major sporting events of our era. We’ve watched everything from playoff basketball to Wrestlemania at B-dubs, and each time is pretty good for trash talking, table bets, and a lot of other craziness. I figured these hallowed moments of guy-time deserve their own blog posts, so I’ll be writing these up each time we do one. Tonight, UFC.

The Main Event: So, my love for UFC fights extends only to the nights Carlos really wants to go and watch them. I never grew up watching UFC, boxing or wrestling. They all seem odd to me. UFC is always weird to watch, because half of the matches have these really long prolonged wrestling matches on the ground where two guys slowly grapple around until one submits or the round is called. I should appreciate these parts for how calculated each move and positioning (and Carlos will shout things like “oh he’s almost in the Crucifix he’s in trouble now”), but usually it’s just really boring to see. UFC does have some pretty spectacular “Oooh!” moments, and a bunch that make me visibly cringe when some knee or elbow or whatever knocks somebody out cold. I mean, that dude just dropped his elbow into the other dudes temple. Then someone gets cut, and they’re sliding around on each other’s sweaty bloody faces and eww.

It also makes me one of every-guy-ever who wonders how he would do if he worked out every day and practiced and fought and stepped into the ring. I’m pretty sure I would do the whole jump up and down thing, get real psyched, touch gloves in the middle of the ring, do a little dancing, a few jabs, get punched once and just turn around and leave. Nope. Not today. No more. It was a good run. Getting punched in the face is not fun. And I haven’t even been punched in the face before. Even in my imaginary world where my imaginary jacked self is a super talented fighter, I am still assuming getting punched in the face will really hurt and I will want to quit.

If I was a fighter, though, I’d want to be cocky. Like, super cocky. I would taunt everyone, the other guy, the ref, the fans, anybody. I’d want to be the villain. I love those guys, they’re totally fun to watch. The trick is to keep being that guy even after you’ve had the shit beat out of you. It takes a special kind of person to get rocked, and come back up talking about the other dude’s mother, but I’d do it. That’d be my thing. I’d be so famous.

Anyway, the featured matchup was “Sugar” Rashad Evans versus Jon “Bones” Jones (who wins the super-cool nickname battle right off the bat, giving him a huge mental edge). But really it was David versus Really Long Arms and Legs and Tall Goliath. The buildup to this match had me so hyped, because it was for a title (Lightweight Champion of the World), but more importantly, Evans and Jones used to be friends! And they had all agreed that they’d never fight each other, but then Jones said he totally would, and then Evans felt betrayed and got mad and left their mutual training camp and now they hate each other! Evans called Jones a “fake-ass white boy” (they’re both black).

When they were friends. Aww!

Evans even said Jones took his starting moves, which was totally true--Evans walks up the stairs to the ring on all fours, and kind of prowls inside like this badass panther. Then, right before the fight he gets down in a three point stance and stares at his opponent. This is like, a totally cool move and I instantly wanted to do it when I next got in the ring. Looks like Jones did too, because when he was introduced, he got down on all fours and walked in the ring! Then there was this crazy-tense moment where they both were down in three point stances staring at each other and it was like Jones was mocking Evans’s moves but also taking them for his own and the student-has-become-the-master and holy crap there is so much tension and then the fight started and Jones rocked Evans and then it was over.

Well, it was longer than that (went all five rounds) but that’s the gist. Jones is so freakishly long that Evans looked like a little kid in comparison, and he couldn’t really do anything, it really wasn’t fair. Evans looked like a broken man afterwards (in spirit, not so much body, he was pretty OK). Anyway, it was fun.

The fans weren’t very animated, which was weird because the last fight I’ve been to was Wrestlemania. Fake fighting = crazy, screaming yelling fans (me too); real fighting = pretty quiet. Hmm.

Things that I saw: The table across from us: Guy, girl, girl, guy. No one is talking to anyone. Guy 1 picks up tab for himself and the two girls. Guy 2 gets his own. Who is dating who? Are they sisters? They didn’t even stay for the fight, they just waited like 30 minutes for a table, and left after they ate! Everyone was texting. They even had that really awkward group moment when everyone sips from their drink at the same time so everyone has an excuse to not say anything but when the drinks are put down no one wants to talk first so everyone takes another sip. Why did he pick up both girls’ tabs?

Things we talked about: Faculty/staff/student hunger games. Who would win? Who would team with who? Who used to be an eagle scout? Which one of us could survive the longest if we were dropped into a forest with nothing? Could I shoot Carlos with one bullet from a sniper rifle if I shot from the hip? Here’s the scenario: I get one bullet, and a sniper rifle. I’m not allowed to hold it to my eye, it has to stay down at my hip. He gets to run at me however he wants, and if he touches me with any part of his body he wins, if I hit him with the bullet, I win. I suggested we could actually try this with a super soaker, rubber band gun, or paintballs, but there was much nose-thumbing at this. This sounds like easy money for me.