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I'm coming to Cap City comedy club next week, you dirty bitches. 8120 Research Blvd # 100 Austin, TX 78758-8475 Get Directions (512) 467-2333

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I’m sitting on a plane right now headed to Dallas, Texas to witness and commentate on UFC 103.  Today I’ll announce the weigh ins where 26 fighters will step on to the scale, dehydrated and nervous, 24 hours away from swinging their bones at each other and attempting to strangle each other unconscious.  The weigh ins are always an interesting part of fight weekend because you get to see the fighters face to face a full day before combat.  Some guys look dried out and sickly from the weight cut, and just looking at their physical appearance often influences betting lines.  It’s a sophisticated thing, this weight cutting, and many of these fighters have it down to a science.  Looking to squeeze out every extra edge, it’s not unusual for guys to weigh in a full 20lbs lighter than they’ll be the next day for combat.

The weigh ins are open to the public, and always packed with rabid mixed martial arts fans, as well as an abundance of affliction t shirts and tribal tattoos.  Women will scream and cheer.  Men will puff out their chests and flex when their favorite fighter takes the scale.  Excitement will fill the air, building with each subsequent weigh in until it climaxes with the main event stare down.

Some folks will want to get their posters signed by their favorite fighters, but this the age of the internet, and when it comes to fan requests the digital photograph has far surpassed the autograph.  These days everyone’s phone has a camera, and everyone wants a picture of them holding their fist up standing next to Randy Couture on their facebook page.  That is easily one of the weirdest and goofiest things about MMA fans; the fist-up pose with the fighter.  I can’t think of another sport that has a pose that the fans take when they get pictures with the athletes where they mimic the activity they enjoy watching.  It’s not just a few guys striking this dopey pose, either.  It’s the majority.  I can completely understand if you’re a fighter yourself, and you want an image of camaraderie with one of your sporting idols, but if you’re an overweight short order cook who’s never even taken a tae bo class, do the world a favor and keep your fucking fist un-balled when you’re standing next to Anderson Silva.

Another unintentionally hilarious aspect of the MMA culture is the abundance of retarded macho “fight wear” T-shirts.  The enormous financial success of enterprising clothing companies like “Tapout” have given birth to a rise of ham-handed imitators where each one tries to out retard the next.  Images of chained up pitbulls and skulls are the norm with shiny foil letters to make sure you can clearly read the “Break my dick off in your ass - fight wear” label.   At the last UFC in New Jersey I actually saw a guy in the audience with a shirt that said, “Some guys are strikers, some guys are grapplers… I’M BOTH!”
Good lord.  Someone please find that poor fuck and give him a hug.

The doucebaggery isn’t limited to T-shirts, either.  I had one guy email me that actually wanted to sell me an pendant that was an MMA glove smothered in diamonds.  The name of his company?  “Hard as diamond – for those who are.” 
No bullshit.
Could you even imagine the near fatal levels of meathead you would have to be infected with to walk out of your house with a diamond encrusted fighting glove around your neck?  On paper it doesn’t even seem possible.
You would think that if you were that retarded there’s no way you would be able to scrape together the kind of money you would need to purchase such an expensive monstrosity.  The only way I could see it happen is if maybe the buyer in question won the lottery, or possibly won a huge settlement in some brain damage inducing accident at the local toilet factory or something.  Talk about your small target markets.

I emailed the enterprising young jeweler back to say that I wasn’t really interested in the glove, but I wanted to know if he could possibly make me a gold pendant of a dragon fucking a pit bull in the ass - covered in diamonds.  I also wanted to know if the dragon’s tail could possibly be constructed in a manner that would allow for it to be detached and double as a cock ring.
I eagerly await his response.

The weigh ins went well, with a couple fighters above the weight limit.  Hermes Franca is fighting Tyson Griffin in a very exciting lightweight battle, and Hermes informed the UFC that he wasn’t able to make the agreed upon 155lb class so they settled on a catch weight of 159.  I’m not sure why he showed up heavy, but it could be because of illness, or maybe an injury.  I’m sure we’ll find out after the fight.  Tyson had no problem with Hermes not making the weight since because of this failure Hermes forfeits 15% of his fight purse to him.

Former light heavyweight champion Vitor Belfort is facing former middleweight champion Rich Franklin in a fantastic main event between two seasoned veterans.  Vitor showed up ¼ of a pound heavy, but made the weight easily on the second try.  The only other failure to make weight was by Efrain Escudero, a former winner of the Ultimate Fighter who is facing the very tough up and coming Cole Miller in a bout to be televised live on Spike TV.  Efrain struggled to make the 155lb limit, but eventually got there.
Should be an awesome night of fights.  There’s 13 fights total, with 2 of them featured live on Spike TV at 9est, and then 5 or more of them airing on pay per view depending on how many early knockouts or submissions there are during the main card.

As I finish this up, it’s 12:30 and I’m just waiting for my waffles and eggs to digest so that I can head downstairs to the gym to get a workout in before the show.  I really fucking love these UFC events, and I look forward to each and every one of them.  Being a commentator for the UFC is truly one of the greatest jobs on the planet and it’s my all time favorite sport to watch by a long shot.  I’ll take some pictures and video and have it all up for you guys tomorrow.

It was 4:30 in the morning at the Clift Hotel in San Francisco when the alarm went off.

It woke me up from a deep sleep, and at first I was completely bewildered.  I thought it was the clock radio alarm in my room, and for the life of me I couldn't figure out how to shut the fucker off.  I was pressing buttons, looking for a volume control... but the fucking thing wouldn't stop it's screeching.

I turned on the light, and as my eyes were trying to adjust enough to read the controls on the clock a voice came over the loudspeaker:

"Attention, there has been a fire reported in the building.  Please evacuate immediately."

I thought at first it was some sort of a recording, but then I realized that it was just a live woman reading it in a mechanical voice.  I realized this when she kept the mic keyed open in between announcements, and I heard a much less calm and robotic man's voice behind her saying, "We've got to get these people out of the building!"

The whole crazy picture was starting to come together.

The hotel is on fire, and I'm on the 15th floor.  FUCK.

I threw on my clothes, stepped out into the hallway, and was prepared to make a mad sprint down the stairs, but I encountered a river of sleepy travelers funneling into the single file stairwell. 

FUCK.

The people were nervous and more than a little out of it, and the line going down the stairs was moving maddeningly slow.

It was one of those stairwells where you could see straight down from the top floor all the way to the bottom, and if you were so inclined you could really freak yourself out by leaning over the railing and thinking about how far a fall it was.

I looked down the well as the line slowly shuffled down the stairs, and at each floor more people were jamming into the herd. There was smoke obscuring the view of the bottom, and as we slowly creeped down this retarded single file pathway to safety I kept my eyes peeled onto that smoke as we went down, holding at bay all thoughts of drastic measures until I saw flames.

People were moving so fucking slowly.  It was a very nerve racking and helpless feeling.  My humanity and my chimp DNA were having a tense conversation in my head.  The humanity side was looking at all these people that were having a hard time walking; old people, obese people, the chronically timid that wilt under any sort of ordinary, every day stress, never mind being a part of a slow chain of hundreds of people making their way down a single file staircase into a hotel fire.

People were freaking out, and my humanity was feeling for them.  It must be a terrible feeling to not only be afraid, but to feel like you're slowing down hundreds of able bodied people from getting to safety in time.

My chimp side, however, was ready to climb over their shoulders and run on the top of their heads all the way to the bottom.

The chimp in my head reported ready and able, "Just say the word, boss.  We're ready to take over at the first sign of the flames."  The chemical smell of fire extinguishers filled the air.  People were covering their mouths with their robes and t shirts.  I could hear humanity turn to the chimp, not quite dismissing him anymore, "Hang on, lets just see how this plays out."

Some people were really freaking out and not handling it well.

It took at least 2 minutes to get from the 15th floor to the 12th floor, and it seemed like it was slowing down. The announcement got more specific: 

"A fire has been reported on the second floor.  Please evacuate the hotel immediately."  10 more floors until the fire, and we're fucking crawling.  FUCK.

One guy stopped.

He just stopped walking, and slack jawed with fear turned around to face his wife, "What is happening?  What's going on?"

It was at that point that humanity and the chimp started to sound rather indistinguishable in my head - "Move, you fuck."  "Just let me yell at him, I won't touch him...” He stopped in his tracks only for two or three seconds, but the urge to murder him was extreme and immediate.  He stuttered backwards a few tiny steps, feeling the will of the crowd, and his wife turned him around and pointed him down the stairs.

"I don't know, just keep walking."  She said.

He turned over his shoulder to look at her like he might argue with her, and decided to just keep walking.

I focused on him intently as he re-merged with the crowd, and as I studied his dopey shuffle I imagined reaching through his asshole, pulling out his guts and his skeletal system and wearing his skin like a fire suit to run through the flames.  This fantasy distracted me for the next 30 seconds that it took to make it half a flight lower.  Maybe it's going to be OK.  Hopefully we'll make it out.  Keep it together.

The painfully slow march down to safety continued.  It was around the 10th floor where the worry really cranked up a notch.

It was taking fucking forever to get down, and if I look down and see that we're walking down into the fire, what the fuck am I going to do?  Do I keep walking and hope to get through it without getting burned?  Do I run back upstairs and hope they can get the fire out before it reaches the upper floors?  Just the thought of that was fucking terrifying.  What if the fire was out of control?

As we slowly got down to the bottom I was relieved to see how calm the hotel staff was.  That was comforting.  They were guiding people outside, and as I was stepping out onto the street, one guy who worked there informed me that some drunken douche bags on the second floor were horsing around and one of them started blowing off the fire extinguishers.  There was no actual fire.

Relieved, I got outside and walked across the street to find my friends.  We were all a little shook up, and as we stood out there on the street lined up on the sidewalk with hundreds of other disposed travelers, lit up by the flashing lights of the fire trucks, it really struck me how random things can be sometimes.

We were lucky as fuck, but it could have just as easily been a real fire.  Our reality had been severely jostled.

There was a sleazy little rub and tug massage parlor on the side street across from the hotel and one of their "masseuses" stepped out for a cigarette and to take a peek at all the commotion.  She was wearing a short skirt, and had some disaster of a tattoo on her fat tits that you could see spilling out over the top of her sports bra.  She looked over and made eye contact with me, and as she took a drag off her cigarette I imagined the smell of a thousand cocks on her hand mixing with the fumes of the Newport she was smoking, and I thought to myself, "That might be the saddest smell in the whole world."

I half jokingly suggested that we all go in for hand jobs - my treat - to try to relax us after our ordeal.  We joked about the sweet pleasure of being handjob number 1001 for the day, then we all agreed that probably none of us would even be able to get it up.

As fucked up as the night had been so far, it would be far worse if it ended with my limp dick being tugged on impatiently by a stinky runaway.

I went back up to my hotel room an hour or so later, feeling humbled and thankful. 

Redban wrote about it on his twitter, but to me it just felt a little too personal.

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