FanPost

Tales from the Kilt: Going to the Bar on Fight Night

I don’t have too many traditions, but one that I have hung onto for a few years now is going to the bar for UFC events. Considering I don’t have the money to spend on every UFC pay-per-view and the Tilted Kilt is a short drive from my house, it only makes sense for me to pull up a seat at the bar, grab a drink, and enjoy the fights. While I have few complaints outside of the occasional mediocre card, I was reminded by heavyfl0w’s outstanding Fanpost the other day of some of the strange characters I’ve come across over the years.

Now, it’s to be expected that people drinking alcohol who do not have a decent understanding of MMA will make cringe-inducing comments occasionally. However, I’m thinking of people who go above and beyond the numskulls who call the fighters gay when the fight goes to the ground or yells “kick his ass, Seabass” during EVERY fight.

One memory I recalled was while watching UFC 135: Jones vs. Rampage. The bar was packed that night and I had a seat next to a large, but polite man and his girlfriend. When the promos got started for the co-main event between Matt Hughes and Josh Koscheck, the man sitting next to me asked if this was a rematch. I told him no, this was the first time they had fought, only to have him respond with a funny look and say, “no, I’m pretty sure this is a rematch.” I assured him that this was their first fight, but the man insisted on looking it up on his phone. A minute later, while looking at his phone, he proclaimed, “Yeah, this is a rematch. Matt Hughes won by unanimous decision in the first fight,” and showed the search results to his girlfriend.

Needless to say, I was perplexed by his findings and was wondering what he found on his phone. I mean, he could’ve just pretended to look it up, but would he really go to the trouble of showing his girlfriend for the sake of proving to me he was right? I can’t possibly be worth that much trouble. Anyway, the fight unfolded with Koscheck knocking out Hughes using a barrage of punches with only a second left in the first round. Immediately following the fight, the man next to me started high-fiving people within his vicinity while yelling “That’s right! Payback’s a bitch!” I was uncommonly speechless for the rest of the evening and even now I have trouble coming up with anything to say besides, “The hell was that?”

Of course there are numerous other strange people who I didn’t have direct interaction with. There was the guy who wore a Mexican flag and tried leading chants in a half-empty bar to support Cain Velasquez during UFC 160. I also got to overhear a man telling his friends, “You know who is a badass fighter is that Anderson Sylvia.” Surely, I couldn’t leave out the, “You can’t pull off a rear naked choke in the streets,” guy.

Now, I know I can’t be the only one who has tales of bizarre bar patrons during UFC shows. Therefore, please respond with your own odd or facepalm worthy stories. It should be an amusing way to pass the time while fight news is rather stagnant.