Las Vegas

(Another day, another opportunity to win big on CagePotato.com. Image courtesy of TheFightAddict)

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As you may have heard already, UFC 100 sold out in record time with all the tickets being snatched up by “UFC Fight Club” members and newsletters subscribers before the general public got so much as a whiff of them.  That’s great news for the UFC since it justifies all the effort they’ve put into making this a historic fight card.  But with the tickets selling out so fast you can’t help but wonder how much of a role scalpers played.

For instance, UFC.com says ticket prices ranged from $100 to $1,000.  But if you check out StubHub.com (the “official fan-to-fan ticket marketplace” of the UFC) right now you’ll see over 1,000 UFC 100 tickets already for sale.  The cheapest one will run you about $428, and needless to say it is not exactly Octagonside.  For that privilege you’ll pay anywhere from $2,500 to $24,000 (ed. note: you fucking kidding me?).  If you are an MMA fan with that kind of money to spend on tickets to a UFC event, then congratulations.  You are Shaquille O’Neal.

(Photo courtesy of NewMexicoBoxing.com.)

The UFC has officially announced five bouts for the supporting card of their historic UFC 100 event, which goes down July 11th at the Mandalay Bay Events Center in Las Vegas; tickets go on sale to the general public tomorrow at 1 p.m. ET/10 a.m. PT. Here's what the lineup looks like so far, according to UFC 100's fight card page on UFC.com:

Main Card
Brock Lesnar vs. Frank Mir (for unified heavyweight championship)
Georges St. Pierre vs. Thiago Alves (for welterweight championship)
Dan Henderson vs. Michael Bisping (MW)
Yoshihiro Akiyama vs. Alan Belcher (MW)

"May not be broadcast"
Jon Jones vs. Jake O'Brien (LHW)
Dong Hyun Kim vs. Jonathan Goulet (WW)
CB Dollaway vs. Tom Lawlor (MW)
Matt Grice vs. Shannon Gugerty (LW)

For some reason, the light-heavyweight match between Mark Coleman and Stephan Bonnar isn't listed on UFC.com, even though Amir Sadollah confirmed the fight during an "Inside the Octagon" segment on Wednesday's installment of The Ultimate Fighter. In addition, welterweights Jon Fitch and Paulo Thiago have reportedly agreed to meet at UFC 100, while a new report from MMA Weekly claims that a lightweight bout between Mac Danzig and Jim Miller will also be added to the card.

Watch MMA Fix Presents MMA Ring Girl Search 2! on RawVegas.tv

Oh, these “ring girl searches.”  Just related enough to the sport of MMA for us to have an excuse for posting them.  I really like Dave Farra’s interview style, because he manages to say things like “Maybe you should go with the ass-shaking thing again, because that worked pretty well last time,” and yet somehow he does not come off sounding like a jerk or a perv, like I would if I said that to a girl in a club.

Seriously though, why do they always ask these girls what they know about MMA?  Are we supposed to be disappointed when a wanna-be ring girl can’t even name an MMA fighter?  Because I’m not.  Nor am I surprised.  I am, however, endlessly amused by the girl who says she likes Randy Couture before blowing a kiss to him (assuming that he’s at home watching Raw Vegas videos on his computer, of course).  When Dave informs her that he’s married to a woman who can also fight a little bit, she responds, “Well then I guess I’ll have to wait.”

I’ll let you guys debate whether that woman has failed to grasp the concept of marriage, or whether she actually knows enough about Couture’s personal history for that to be a somewhat intelligent statement.

(Please just tell me there's a dancing seminar by Gono.)

The UFC sent out an email today announcing their first ever UFC Fan Expo around UFC 100 in Las Vegas this summer.  It includes training demos, autotgraph sessions, and “keynote addresses,” possibly from Dana White and/or Lorenzo Fertitta (though details on anything are very sketchy at the moment).  Basically, a lot of fun stuff for UFC fans in the days leading up to what is supposed to be the biggest UFC event to date.  Sounds great.

The trouble is, you have to buy a ticket, and they aren't cheap.  You can get a two-day pass for $50 if you buy in advance, or a one-day pass for $30.  This way the UFC gets you to pay for the fights, whether you watch them live or on pay-per-view, and also gets you to pay for some idle entertainment before the fights, like watching Matt Hughes demonstrate how he choked out Frank Trigg’s pompous ass, or listening to Dana White swear his way through a speech about professionalism and ethics in business. 

Okay, those things would both be worth paying for.

If you’re headed to Vegas for UFC 100 you should a) put aside some money to buy me a beer at the Hofbrauhaus, and b) keep an eye on this website for Expo information.  It doesn’t offer much help at the moment since they just announced it, but the last question on the Frequently Asked Questions list is worth a chuckle: