Of course watching the Super Bowl this weekend was on the top of my priorities, but Saturday night I got to experience a whole other sports gathering experience at the Buffalo Wild Wings in Windsor, CT. Ultimate Fighting Championship or UFC as its commonly known by its fans, is a new sport that is drudging up a lot of popularity recently. UCF is part of MMA or Mixed Martial Arts. It is a mixture of wrestling, boxing, and martial arts. Participants do not wear shoes and they do not wear boxing gloves. UFC became popular in Brazil and has made its way over to the States in 2005 on Spike TV which it aired after WWE Raw. UFC's pay-per-view fights gained popularity and since it is real fighting and not like professional wrestling, it has more appeal to viewers.
Now that you know the basics of UFC you know more about it than I did when walking into my first UFC experience after I agreed to go with one of my friends from high school and former wrestler to Windsor. All I knew about it was the bits and pieces I saw on Spike TV of two guys grappling each other in tight shorts... When I quickly changed the channel. But I decided to give it a shot.
UFC was not as bad as I thought it would be. It was almost like watching a fight in Vegas but with bad wings and no casino. I was shocked to see the line outside of Buffalo Wild Wings and how every table was packed and the fight playing on at least 30 flat screen TV's. Although UFC was not popular in my mind, the crowd proved otherwise. We squeezed into our table with a few friends holding our seats and the fighting began. Normally I am in the loop when sports are being discussed over beers, but the conversation about Anderson Silva and Forrest Griffin went right over my head. As I looked around the restaurant I was surprised to see that I was not the only girl in the room.
Forrest Griffin's fight began and the whole place erupted with cheers as I asked, "Is this the main event?" Nope. Not even close. I was thinking why I am waiting all night to watch some 35 year-old guy with the nickname "The Spider"fight some other guy? But as Griffin's fight began I could see the appeal. Blow after blow thrown by Griffin knocked Rich Franklin to the ground and Griffin was thought to lose the fight. I found myself getting into this UFC stuff in the matter of minutes.
After Griffin's hand was raised as the winner, it was Anderson Silva's turn against Victor "The Phenom" Belfort. Silva was hailed as the raining champ but in the first three minutes of the fight I didn't see much out of him. Thinking that this fight was boring I was not prepared as to what came next... the kick heard around the world. Silva kicked Belfort in the jaw when Belfort expected to be hit in the body. Belfort went crashing down and Silva hesitated to punch him while he was down. Then the fight was ruled a knock out and Silva remains champion. If I took my eyes off the screen for a second I would have had to resort to watching the replay.
The whole place came to their feet when Belfort's face was hit and could not believe their eyes. I found myself on my feet high-fiveing over a sport I didn't know anything about a mere 3 hours before. Want to see the kick for yourself? Here it is: http://www.mmatko.info/anderson-silva-vs-vitor-belfort-fight-video-ufc-126-main-event/

The next pay-per-view event is February 26th and now I can honestly say I am looking forward to a UFC event.