Brag: IFL Everett

[ruken]

Brag: Went to IFL tonight to watch live mixed martial arts, and it was the most balla thing eva.
Beat: Went to play pokah afterward and got smacked with a 2-outer on the river for a $300 pot (money went in on turn, made monstro read that was correct).
Brag: Still up $74 tonight. (Possibly a beat if you roll high stakes. I wanted to play 1/2 and all they had was 3/5.)

So it's finally the day for IFL - International Fight League. For some dumb reason I assumed that my stupid friends were cool enough to go with me, so I'd bought 3 tickets instead of the 1 that I actually needed. Long story short, obv they don't come and neither do any of my other stupid friends. With all the people I know you'd think that at least one of them did the same stuff that I did. Nonetheless, I make it up there in time and immediately find two kids (combined age probably 25). I offer them tickets for $25 apiece and they go to the window to check out what it actually costs to get a seat. After about two seconds they're right back with $50 for me, peeled out of a gangsta roll.. what? These kids are more balla than me. Before you ask, I paid $80 for 3 tickets so they did ok.

Anyway, so I'm up in there and nobody's in their seats yet, and all of a sudden the announcer is making a bunch of noise. What? Oh, it's preliminary fights. Two random guys fight, and it's fast. Two more random guys fight, and it's kinda fast. Decent matches all, and we're not even in the televised stuff yet. The production value is amazing - lots of color, big projector screens to follow the action on, and the arena is fairly small (seats 7,200?) so the action is up-close even for the cheap seats. I'm patting myself on the back for not spending more money.

More blah blahs, nu metal, production videos, and the event kicks off. The ignorant-ass crowd proves how indebted to public assistance they are by booing two hard-working fighters pretty much right from the get-go. I move three rows forward to get out of earshot from a group of drunken college-age idiots calling out fighters for any imaginable infraction, such as accidentally falling out of the ring ('get back in there you pussy!') and the like. I almost wanted to fight them myself, but they're a good three weight classes above me and I don't know the jiu-jitsu.

Chad Horodecki v. Shad Lierley was the most balla-est fight of the night, by far. Lierley's a rookie with a 2-0 record coming into the fight, and Horodecki was the heavy favorite with a 9-0 record - at 19 years old! Savage. These kids start out trading BOMBS right away. Unbelievable fight that goes 3 rounds without either of them letting up. The crowd is solidly behind Lierley as he's the Seattle representative for the fight, and boo when the UD goes to Horodecki - but nobody should have booed any part of that fight. (Or any fight really)

Drunken fan quote of the night: "Punch him in the balls... fart on him!" (lots to choose from)

Then I went to play poker at the casino and got 2-outed and 5-outed and still made money.

Cliff Notes: MMA is the bomb. Scalped tickets. Watched good fights. Played poker.

[DannyOcean_]

Live MMA events are pretty awesome, and the ones i've been to were on a much smaller scale than the IFL. Must've been cool, any pics?

[ruken]

Just some long-range ones. My camera phone only has a 2x digital zoom and the pictures are a blurry mess, so I didn't think it was worth posting them.

So, here's a pic of a chick instead.