Day one is complete and what a whirlwind it was.
After landing in Vegas late on Monday night, my Producer and I stayed up to meet with our cameraman to lay out a foundation for what is going to be a hectic week in Sin City.
After being mocked for ordering a healthy dish (a plate of fresh fruit) at 1am PST, we finally got down to business. UFC 100 and all its festivities are going to have us running across the city to get the best content possible, while deciding which stuff to pass up.
We had plans to hit a couple of MMA gyms on Tuesday but a Dana White tweet that my producer caught quickly changed our plans to meet up with the UFC President, at the Martial Arts Expo at the MGM, during a special luncheon.
We ended up having to jump through a few hoops to get in, but after being recognized by some of the UFC staff, we were given priority to the "boss".
As always, Dana was great on camera, but his thoughts off the record were simply golden. We were in stitches laughing but we had to let White get back to business, and commence signing autographs and taking pictures.
White told us that tickets for UFC 100 were obviously sold out and for many of the fighters coming in to see the show, even they won't be able to get into The Mandalay Bay; White said he had to rebook them for some of the many venues showing the event on closed circuit TV.
After that, we scrambled to record some content in the blistering sun of the desert heat. Unlike the humidity and heat I am accustomed to at home in Toronto, the Vegas sun is punishing.
We shot at two different locations and trust me, it was sweltering, but two things came to mind. The first was minus 30 degree winters in Canada and the second was to simply "smile" and realize that I am blessed to have the greatest job on the planet.
We then bolted to get the content sent back to Sportsnet in time for our deadline and thankfully we did it with plenty of time to spare. But the question is, can we do it for the rest of the week?
Tomorrow is going to be fun - we have the media workouts with Brock Lesnar, Frank Mir, Georges St-Pierre, Thiago Alves, Dan Henderson and Michael Bisping. We are all pretty confident its going to be ugly, as all six of them are not going to hold back, no matter what I ask.
Make sure to check out Sportsnet.ca and Connected every day (and night) this week as we will keep you updated on all the big news for UFC 100.
