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I Was A Journalist At Bellator NYC This Weekend: My Column

Robbie Fox
Robbie Fox6/26/2017 5:45 PM

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New York, NY - It was a tale of two years. In 2016, Robbie Fox was a high schooler running his own MMA and professional wrestling blog called The Squared Octagon, with the sole intention of getting noticed by media powerhouse Barstool Sports. His attempts to gain popularity so his daily emails to Dave Portnoy and Keith Markovich didn’t fall by the wayside ultimately failed every time. Nobody, including the UFC or Bellator would grant him credentials or a three minute interview with even the worst fighter on the roster. The Squared Octagon “just didn’t have enough pageviews”.

The year is now 2017, and that hopeful young 17 year old boy Robbie Fox was unfortunately murdered brutally by a man named Octagon Bob. Octagon Bob is the most feared MMA fighter in all the land. The UFC and Bellator now get on their hands and knees and beg him to attend events, all offering lucrative seven figure contracts he scoffs at. This past Saturday, he was put on press row to cover Bellator NYC at Madison Square Garden, and will now stopping referring to himself in the third person and talk about the damn show.

I got to the world’s most famous arena pretty early, because I was suuuuper eager to see the cage up close. I was early enough to stop by the media room and grab some hot dogs, and let me tell you, nothing makes you feel your age quite like sitting alone backstage at Madison Square Garden in a three piece suit eating hot dogs…with ketchup. I saw boxes of popcorn and bottles of soda, and was SUUUUUUPER tempted to bring them out to my seat, but also had no idea if that was allowed so I didn’t. Then, I got out there, with the crowd, and the lights, and saw that beautiful sight I’d dreamed of.

Popcorn and soda. On everyone’s desks.

Right back to the media room I went for popcorn and soda, and right back to the barbaric human cockfighting I went. Here was my view:

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The first few fights were fun, and had finishes (they went like 4 for 4 at first) which is always the most exciting way to start an MMA event. It’s like a band kicking off the show with 4 bangers that EVERYBODY knows. Can’t not get pumped up. The first TV fight featured the MMA debut of Golden Gloves Boxer Heather Hardy – who also had maybe the hottest weigh in attire of all time the day before – against Alice Yauger.

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The glasses do it for me.

Hardy narrowly won the first round in a slugfest, and thankfully realized sooner than later to not throw any kicks or do ANYTHING but box. In the third, there was an accidental headbutt that gave Hardy a NASTY cut on her left eye, and a doctor was brought in to see if the fight had to be stopped. He decided it wasn’t over yet, and Hardy decided yes, it was. She dropped Yauger right after coming out of her corner, waited for the standing eight count, and TKO’d her standing with less than thirty seconds left in the fight.

The Garden erupted for the hometown fighter, and we moved on to the next bout: James Gallagher vs Chinzo Machida.

Gallagher is Conor McGregor’s teammate, and literally a Muppet Baby version of him at only 20 years old. The mannerisms, the trash talk, the screaming animal tattoo on his chest, all of it. Not in a “fuck this wannabe” way, but instead in a “it’s so cute that Conor McGregor’s little brother looks up to him this much” way. Chinzo Machida is Lyoto Machida’s brother, double the age of Gallagher, and his biggest test yet. This didn’t prove to be an issue for the Irishman, however, when he got the rear naked choke easily in the first.

After the fight I headed backstage for his media scrum to hear what he had to say about it, and he had this gem that really hit close to home…

I feel ya, buddy. Let me know if you wanna hit up Dave and Busters one of these days.

This really cool video also surfaced via The Mac Life (Conor’s website) of McGregor telling James that his time will come “soon enough”.

Phil Davis defended his Light Heavyweight Championship against Ryan Bader in the television main event, and it was the most Ryan Bader fight of all time. It was just brutally boring, and got booed out of the building while everyone got concessions and prepared for the pay per view card. Bader “won” the fight via split decision, and I think I agree with the judges, but so little happened that I wouldn’t have argued if Davis retained. I’m always personally offended that Bader is a boring fighter, because he uses the nickname Ryan “Darth” Bader. If you use that nickname, you have to fight like you’re in a room full of Rebels and they have the stolen plans to the Death Star.

(Rogue One spoilers)

The pay per view began with a five round title bout in the Welterweight Division between Douglas Lima and Lorenz Larkin. It was one of those chess match type MMA fights that a lot of the casual fans didn’t like, because they wan’ see BLOOD N’ GUTS, but I really enjoyed it. Larkin is a great, great, great competitor, and Lima was unfazed by any and all offense he threw. He won via decision, and will now defend his title against Rory MacDonald, which is one of the best matchups in the world on paper.

Up next: the MMA debut of Aaron Pico, who many were calling the best prospect in history leading up to fight week. On the opposite side of the cage stood Zach Freeman, a furniture salesman from St Louis. As soon as I saw these two at the presser last Thursday, I got a weird feeling in my stomach. Freeman had a chip on his shoulder, Pico looked nervous and intimidated by the bright lights. When I found out MMA didn’t pay Freeman’s bills, and he worked a shitty day job 40 hours a week, I instantly said I hope he upsets the wrestler…and then he did. In thirty seconds.

The crowd went WILD and every journalist on press row was stunned.

Pico took the loss like a champion at the post fighter presser, and I truly believe he’ll bounce back from this and pan out to be as good as everyone thought he’d be. MMA ain’t easy, and takes an adjustment period for wrestlers. He was eager, rushed in, and got caught. It happens to the best fighters in the world. It also wasn’t a fluke, though. Zach Freeman is the real deal as a veteran, now standing at 9-2, and was probably a bad matchup for Pico in his first professional fight.

The Lightweight Championship was on the line next, in a fight between Michael Chandler (who has kinda been the face of Bellator for years) and newcomer Brent Primus (who had like 700 Twitter followers before this fight and still hasn’t hit 1000). It started out really exciting, they were both rocking each other, clipping each other, and them BAM. Primus hits a bunch of low kicks on the champ, and his ankle snaps. He tries to fight through it, dragging his broken ass foot across the canvas, and almost knocks Primus out shortly after, but a doctor was brought in, and the fight was stopped.

Primus’ celebration went WAAAAAAY over the top and made me kinda hate the guy. In the post fight presser, he claimed he’s been injuring training partners with low kicks, and that win was no different than a knockout, because he meant to injure Chandler with the kick. It was preposterously delusional. As soon as Michael Chandler returns, he’s taking his gold back.

In all of the chaos, there was a hysterical moment when Chandler stood up from the stool to get the crowd going, and someone from the NYSAC took it away before he sat back down. Classic middle school trick right there.

Bring out the heavyweights!

Matt Mitrione, a former New York Giant and possibly a Barstool Heartland employee (seriously, can anybody verify this? I have no fookin’ clue) made his walk, and then lights out, huge pop, and the anticipation to see the greatest heavyweight of all time kicked in. The Russian music hit, Fedor Emelianenko walked to the cage, and there was that feeling in the air. The big fight feel. The bell rang, the big men felt each other out for a few seconds, and I thought to myself, “This is a special moment. I’m watching the heavyweight GOAT fight one of his final fights ever at Madison Square Garden. Let me take a picture of this.” This picture I got wasn’t great, because I took it just as they knocked each other down simultaneously.

Mitrione recovered first, used his fist to put Fedor’s skull through the canvas, and donned his Giants jersey for the crowd. It was the moment of the night for sure. Afterwards, he gave a hilarious post fight speech, which featured him saying “Donald Trump, you’re bringing the Golden State Warriors in for a meeting, fuck the Golden State Warriors, I’m the champ. Bring me in!”

This was especially funny because Matt is not the champ. Bellator does not have a heavyweight champ. He also urged everyone to donate to Tim Hague’s GoFundMe page, and so do I. Here’s the link.

During the fight, I looked to my left, and John Kavanagh was sitting not too far away. If you’re unaware, that’s Conor McGregor’s coach. Like, that’s Conor McGregor’s coach. You understand? Conor McGregor’s coach. Do you know how much I wanted to go up to him and show him the recreations I’ve done? So much. I couldn’t though, as my journalistic integrity prevented that. #BigJ

It was now time for the main event, Chael Sonnen vs Wanderlei Silva, 31947 years in the making, so of course, Dave Navarro of Jane’s Addiction and Ink Master fame was here to play to National Anthem on the electric guitar. Obviously.

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The fight was interesting, because Chael (who has never been knocked out in his career, not even wobbled) got ROCKED with almost every punch he got hit with, one of them even dropped him. Every takedown he shot for was successful, though, and that ultimately led him to victory when time ran out. During the boring moments of the fight, Tito Ortiz was SCREAMING at Sonnen cageside, calling him a fucking pussy, bitch, motherfucker, etc, etc, etc. While the crowd chanted “Tito sucks!” and “Fuck you Tito”, he turned and gave everyone the double bird. He’s an asshole.

Chael’s post fight speech was very Chael, where he said he hated New York and threatened Fedor to “never piss off a gangster”.

So, to recap, was Bellator NYC the event it was promoted to be? No. It wasn’t the biggest MMA event of the year. It was a shitshow, and a lot of that wasn’t their fault. A lot of things just went wrong, unfortunately. But that’s what makes Bellator, Bellator. And I love that. I’ll take a crazy freakshow weird night like this over a middle of the line UFC Fight Night every god damn day of the week. Bellator is fun. They don’t take themselves too seriously, have some wild circus fights, and then also have some legit killers. There’s variety in the product, and will always be kept close to my heart as the first promotion that credentialed me. I know that means absolutely nothing to 99% of you, and you’re probably like, “You work at Barstool, you can get credentialed anywhere, why is the #2 MMA promotion so important to you?” and honestly, it’s because I realized a dream on Saturday. I’ll be doing this kind of stuff for the rest of my life, and this weekend made me fall in love with MMA all over again.

Not to mention I was the best dressed member of the media by a billion miles, and I’m single AF, ladies.

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Robbie Fox
Robbie Fox6/26/2017 5:45 PM