("Viva Hate" and Pat Barry: A true meeting of the minds. Photos in this post courtesy of ReX13.)
By CagePotato.com Fan Expo video contest winner Chris "Viva Hate" Morse
First, let me start by saying welcome aboard to all the new readers and members of CagePotato Nation. It was a pleasure and joy to meet, chat, hang, and beat down the punch machine with each and every one of you. Make yourselves comfortable and enjoy the complete experience of Cage Potato. Now, let’s get to the fun.
The experience began at the Semi Official Cage Potato meet up that went down on Thursday night at Champions Sports Bar. It was somewhat casual and to be honest some people may have had some trouble finding the group. Thank you to all of those that did come out. Hopefully everyone was able to try the Championship Tower, it was amazing and I would highly recommend it. I would also recommend you carry an AED with you as well, just in case.
The UFC Fan Expo was an amazing experience and the Cage Potato booth was extremely popular. I do feel somewhat bad for the punch machine that was literally having the stuffing knocked out of it by mid day on Friday. For those of you who were not lucky enough to make it to Boston, here are some notes from the booth…
First, if Kurt is out there reading this, you really are my new BFF. Please, just never hit me, thank you. Kurt was a man who stopped by the booth to show his punch machine skills. He also delivered a mind-staggering 993 score. He was the punch machine champion of the UFC Fan Expo and deserves some props for the insane punches he delivered.
Next, we had the pleasure of meeting a ton of CP fans. Thank you to everyone who stopped by and for all the great words. I want to send huge props to the guy who recognized me as “the accent dude.” And to answer the most commonly asked question, sadly Fowlkes is no longer here. We do, however, have Mike Russell who unfortunately could not make it to the U.S. for visa issues. I guess we would not allow him into the country officially making him the most hardcore man with a faux hawk. MRuss you were missed, plenty of people were looking for new dad. [Ed. note: The story behind Mike's "visa issues" is pretty entertaining in itself. We urge you to harass Mike until he shares it on the site.]
There were so many fighters who went out of their way to show love for the fans. We always hear about how great UFC and MMA fighters are to the fans and this weekend showed a ton of that. Mark Coleman stayed 2 hours over his allotted time to sign every last autograph. Tito Ortiz stayed well after the Expo has closed on Friday night to make sure he met every fan he had in line, which was huge because security was very strict. Of course, Wes Sims stopped by the CP booth to teach a group of young kids the touch of death and also threaten them for lunch money.
There are two fighters who deserve a ton of respect and love for what they did at the CP booth. The first one is Ben Rothwell. Ben appeared out of nowhere late Friday when he spotted the punch machine. He politely asked for a chance to take a show. We of course pushed everyone aside and let him jump the line. He then proceeded to punch the machine close to 10 times trying to break the record. (This was a full day before Kurt put us all on notice.) Big Ben was so excited to just hang out and play an arcade game.
The next fighter who deserves huge props is Pat “HD” Barry who provided what I would call the magic moment of the UFC Fan Expo. Rex and I both invited Pat over to the booth to take a shot at the punch machine. Pat said he could not punch the machine but he would love to be able to throw some kicks, we gladly obliged. A short time later Pat Barry walked over and memories were made. Pat pushed aside some furniture to clear room and then hiked up his shorts. Pat kicked the machine roughly 15 times, continuously stating that this turn would be his last. A huge crowd formed and witnessed Pat thunderously kicking the machine. As he was leaving for an autograph session he said he would be back in an hour to kick it again with us, literally. Pat is a man of his word because an hour later Pat was back and doing again. Congrats to Pat and his high score of 968.
The Cage Potato booth was super fun and a huge success. We had a ton of visitors from the likes of “Big” Ben Rothwell, Pat “HD” Barry, Joe “Daddy” Stevenson, Wes Sims, Ryan Couture, Ariel Helwani, Bruce Buffer, John Howard, Jorge Rivera, and security that had to inform us numerous times we were too popular. Again, welcome aboard to all the new members of the CP Nation, it is a great place with great people.
Note: Thank you again to BG, Rex, and Matt it was a blast and an insane experience.
Lol whats he wearing and whats he doing!!!! great have fun buddy