Wholy Holy

UFC 130 Weigh In is at the MGM Grand Garden Arena tomorrow. Today the production crew started loading in the lighting truss. It's cool to see the arena go from Academy of Country Music Awards to Pacquiao vs. Mosley to Billboards to UFC and then to Nitro Circus next week. It's been an exhausting run and we've still got 1 more week to go before a break. But I love it. I love my team, I love the arena boys, I love the stress, the long hours, the perks, the problem-solving and the satisfaction of putting together world-class events. I'm a lucky girl. I know that. I know that most certainly - Wholy Holy.

05.07.11 Pacquiao vs. Mosley @ MGM Grand Garden Arena - Las Vegas, NV

Today is fight day. Nothing beats a mega-fight at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. It's crazy busy but I'll be Tweeting all day into night so follow me on @AmyZopfi for twitpics and updates. At some point in the next couple of days I'll post goodies from the weigh in and fight night. For pics from earlier in the week head to my FB pics.

Wanna see a kick ass time-lapse? Head to Steve Marcus at the Las Vegas Sun. Incredible stuff.

05.06.11 Pacquiao vs. Mosley Weigh In @ MGM Grand Garden Arena - Las Vegas, NV

Photo courtesy of Jason Tang
Me twitpic-ing Manny

Today is the Pacquiao vs. Mosley Weigh In at the MGM Grand Garden Arena. Weigh ins are always fun. The energy, chanting, dancing & nonsense is epidemic - especially for a mega-fight! It's hard not to get caught up in the frenzy. I love this day. The fans are great, the arena is buzzing, this is where the vibe is palpable.

Shane & entourage arrives 

The arena is set for just about 6,000. We can't do it in full arena mode because the production is still tweaking things and the NVAC needs space to check in fight camps, do their fighter medicals, etc. If you think it's crazy in front of the curtain you should see behind it. It's a madhouse. People everywhere milling about, chatting, doing the man-hug-half-grab thing. Even though it's chaos behind the curtain it's controlled chaos. No one is making a fuss and everyone knows how to behave, for the most part. On one side of the arena I see a group of people detained by security. None of them have temporary credentials. Happens a lot with boxing. Everyone thinks they're somebody. Never in any other sporting group are there this many legitimate bad guys. One of the biggest problems we face is the counterfeiting of credentials - and who is the biggest culprit? The fight camps and sometimes the main event fighters. Comes with the territory. You hope that people do the right thing but bank on the fact that they're slimy and won't - more often than not, they're slimy. Sad but true.

But in total the weigh in is a resounding success. Lots of A+ press, an even greater public presence. So much that we have to close down the entry and turn people away. It's only happened a handful of times that I can recall. The Hatton & De La Hoya weigh ins are 2 that come to memory.

John Locher mounting an overhead
camera on the spider truss

I take a gander up and see the scissor lift raising up photog extradordinare John Locher. He's going up to the spider truss to mount an overhead camera. It allows him to snap pics from above from ringside down below. Some of the coolest shots are taken from there. John is one of the all-time great guys. He is married to Laura Rauch, another world-class photographer who embeds oversees in war zones, in celebrations, at sporting events, all over. She is one of the few women I look up to. She's beautiful, smart, got an edge and thriving - no killing it - in a man's world. I love that. And when I found out they got married I thought, "Yes! Of course they belong together!"

My tweep @AZFightFan

One of the perks of my job is access. I've been monitoring my tweets all week and one follower @AZFightFan asked me if he could get a backstage tour. Ask and you shall receive. He was a sweet kid, no more than 21. He had been in line since like 9.00a that morning. By the time I got to him he was lost in the monstrous crowd waiting to get into the weigh in. After a couple Tweets we met up and I gave him the full 360 tour of the arena: took his pic on the weigh in stage, took him backstage, into the dressing rooms, the works. He was so sweet. It felt good to do something nice for someone who wasn't expecting it and who was so gracious.

I also hooked up another Tweep @Jerkstore23. He had been corresponding with me throughout the week. His flight didn't get in until the afternoon of the weigh in so when he finally got back to me we had shut down the weigh in to any more people. But I met him outside of Seablue and escorted him and his buddy into the weigh in to my VIP seats. He wasn't as young and naive as @AZFightFan but nonetheless appreciative.

James Brown revving the crowd

The Classy Jimmy Lennon Junior is there to announce the weigh in. James Brown is also there to lend his respectful hand. We've had lots of hosts for weigh ins. My favorite might be George Lopez for one of the hispanic fights. George is a regular at MGM boxing shows. He's a great guy. Very approachable. One of the best couplings was about 3 years ago when I saw George and Freddie Prince, Jr hanging out together. Just seemed odd - but that's the beauty of Vegas. Never know who you'll see... together.

After Shane & Manny weigh in the place clears out pretty fast. Unfortunately for the rest of the undercard fighters, there isn't much of an audience left, but they get to the utilitarian chore of weighing in for the NSAC. 

For more pics head to my FB page. 

How Men Are

Last night I had dinner with part the PR machine for the Pacquiao vs. Mosley fight. Brener, Scotty, D-blaz, couple of PR girls, another Showtime dude and Lance from the LA Times. I've read Pugmire's stuff but this was the first time ever actually meeting him face to face. What a great guy. I met Counselor for a couple drinks at Seablue prior to meeting up with them at Fiamma for dinner so I was chattier than normal. I blabbed about how I've got a crush on a local radio guy. In hindsight, probably not the smartest thing to do - tell an investigative journalist and the head of Showtime PR who I've got a secret crush on - but who cares. It was fun listening to them scheme for me. I could have worse people working on getting me a date.

Last night at Seablue Counselor asked me when my parents were coming into town. I told him they arrived Monday and left on Thursday. Again we made plans for him to have dinner with us. It's a little strange. The only people I've ever brought to have dinner with me and my parents here in Vegas are 3 men - none of whom I'm currently dating or ever (technically) dated. First was Rodney. They love him. LOVE him. I think if they could choose, they'd pick him for me. Rodney's such a good guy. There's just no spark with us. We're truly like best friends, have been for 4 years. People used to think we were sleeping together. We knew it and played it up. It was fun fucking with people. Then there's J. J's good to take to dinner because the boy loves history and literature. He and my mom have that in common. He's good at dealing with parental units too. Must be from a lifetime of dealing with his. J's parents are boisterous, lively, adorable creatures. Mine are your typical Minnesota-nice couple. I used to joke, "Can you imagine your parents and my parents at dinner together." He didn't seem to think anything of it. I on the other hand am not sure my parents could handle his. Think Meet The Fockers. My parents adore both boys though and ask how J and Rodney are doing often. So pending a classic Counselor-flakeout it will be interesting to see what they think of him. I'm not a bit worried since Counselor is terribly charming. He puts M to shame in the charm department; one of his best qualities I think. And this boy can talk. He can talk to anyone, anytime, about anything for any length of time. He's so much like me it's scary. Or maybe the scary part is that I'm like him.

Nothing fight related scheduled today. Well technically we have the undercard press conference in the media center around 11.00a but I didn't give a fat rat's ass about the main event presser, I'm surely not going to sit thru the undercard. At some point though, I have to remember to catch up with Kieran Mulvaney so he can autograph my polar bear book. I'm still only on chapter 2. I just think it's cool that he wrote a book about polar bears. I don't know why. Tonight is the Press Dinner at Lupo at Mandalay. As I told DQ yesterday, I'll play the role of the Grand Garden Arena Ambassador (because I know he's not gonna do it; he doesn't like PR dinners). Twist my arm. I'll go be social around a bunch of men talking about sports, politics and life. Is there anything better than How Men Are?

So the plan is to get up, work off the 4 glasses of Pinot attaching itself to my liver, head in to work for the last day before we really kick it up a notch with the Pacquiao vs. Mosley weigh in and the fight on Saturday night. Talk about a circus. But I love this stuff. Am absolutely in love with it.