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. 

05.03.11 Pacquiao vs. Mosley Arrivals @ MGM Grand - Las Vegas, NV

Fighter arrivals, controlled chaos

Fighter arrivals are one big PR event staged for tv cameras, iPhones and the public. They're a cheap way to garner hype for the fight. 

Around 11.30a I headed up to the lobby of the hotel from the Grand Garden Arena, me and 10 guys in suits in tow. Those are my guys. When I round the corner from the elevator bank to the lobby I see a big crowd surrounding the ring, 360. I can't even see the bike rack separating them from the ring. On closer inspection the bike-racked area was pretty large so the initial crowd wasn't nearly as big as I originally thought. 

Fans for Sugar Shane

I head out to the porte cochere (valet area for those non-hoity-toity peeps) to get away from the crowds. For someone who hates being around crowds, I'm in a funny business. I meet up with Bo, the VP of Security for the property out under the porte. We shoot the shit for a while. He is one of my dearest friends. He used to work in the arena and together we had the funnest and crazy-busiest year of our lives. Some of the other security guys come over to tell us that Mosley is leaving his room. It's a casino with security and cameras everywhere. People track your every move. Sometimes when I'm at Seablue Bo will email me, "Hey, how's that NY Strip." He's watching me on the cameras. I just flip the camera the bird, lovingly of course. 

About 10 minutes later Sugar Shane Mosley's bus rounds the corner. Brilliant marketing scheme actually. The entourage exits the bus and a trail of people follow Mosley from the bus thru the gauntlet to the mini-ring in the lobby of the MGM Grand. He stops and takes a few pics with fans who are lining the bike rack. On one side a group of guys are chanting "Mosley..." and holding a huge red sign. Very American Idol.

Sugar Shane Mosley's bus

Mosley heads up into the ring along with a select group of A+ level members of the media and a handful of PR people. Mosley holds court in the corner of the ring while mics, booms, cameras and people are all in his face. He is an old pro at this though. Nothing phases him. At one point Mosley turns out towards the fans and they erupt in cheers. Mosley is very personable and has the most amazing eyes you'll ever see. He's also one of the nicest men you'll ever meet. Mosley wraps up and led by security he heads back behind the front desk to a secure back-of-house area to get to the media center for some one-on-one interviews.

Shane Mosley posing for the fans

I head back to the porte cochere for round 2, Pacquiao. While Mosley is a superstar-hall-of-famer in his own right, the majority of the fans are there to see Pacman. Mosley's bus was about 30 minutes late so I didn't expect Pacquiao's to be on time. They never are. About 12.55p Pacquiao's bus rounds the corner. Both fighter's buses are identical, save the face of the fighter. As I mentioned, it's all 1 big marketing campaign to sell pay-per-view and closed circuit tickets at this point because the live event is sold out. 

Manny Pacman Pacquiao's bus

When people start filing out of Pacquiao's bus, it's like a never ending clown car but x10. I don't know how many people he had in there but it had to be upwards of 30. They just kept coming. Finally we see Manny himself, his trainer Freddie Roach and the now famous (thanks to Showtime's Fight Camp 360) Fred Sternberg. The bus pulls away and we repeat the combine walk from the porte to the ring. Pacquiao too has fans with signs along with a group of Philipino traditional dancers. Think Mariachi's but female and in sherbert-colored prom dresses circa 1980. 

Manny's fans

Manny's got probably double the amount of press surrounding him. It's not because Shane is less interesting or the media doesn't care. Manny is not just a fighter, he's a public figure in every sense of the word. He's a congressman, a singer (cringe), a national hero and oh yeah, a great fighter. He's got the hopes and support of his nation on his shoulders. There have been many outstanding athletes and celebrities in the world but none that I can think of recently who have so much at stake. 

He does his interviews in the ring too and heads out the same was as Mosley - presumably. After I followed Pacman into the lobby and saw him enter the ring, I made a beeline back out to the porte because DQ and Trubes were there to pick me up for lunch at Metro Pizza. Hey, I've got my priorities straight. I wouldn't trade my lunches with them for anyone, not even a hall-of-fame boxer or congressman - well, maybe for a trumpet player.

For more pics with my crappy BlackBerry head to my Facebook page.

03.12.11 Cotto vs. Mayorga @ MGM Grand Garden Arena - Las Vegas, NV

(I'm putting together my fight night blog. It'll be up sometime after midnight. I realize this doesn't matter to anyone but me... but in case someone who stumbles upon my Botti blog might also be a fight fan, follow me on twitter @AmyZopfi.)

Fight night at Grand Garden Arena

It's 1.52p. Just finished up my security briefing with my innermost team. Now it's their turn to disperse into their own teams to brief the more than 200 front-of-house staff on the ins and outs of the fight. Concurrently, security is doing the same thing with their teams, Las Vegas Metro Police & EMS. We do boxing & UFC so often that there's not much new to translate but there a couple of tweaks here and there. 

For example, this time the promoter built a huge raised ramp for the fighters to ascend when they do their ring walk. Cool but very WWE. Maybe it will look better on Showtime PPV than it seems. The plan is to have just the fighter walk up the ramp while his camp follows along the right side and meet up with him at the bottom. I wonder how the fight camps felt about being separated from their fighter. They're kind of sensitive - like geese who can't separate from their flight formation. 

Grand Garden just before doors

We're approaching my favorite time of the day, just before doors. The entire arena looks so neat & tidy, symmetrical, organized, empty. It's fun to watch it fill up with bodies & energy. This fight isn't a huge seller, only about 6,500. In comparasin for Pacquiao vs. Mosley in May we'll have 16,000+. This is a good test run for the May fight. And even though the fight didn't sell well, the fighters deserve no less respect for what they're about to do. Getting their skull bashed in isn't exactly golf. My hat's off to ya boys. 

Crowd entering Grand Garden

It's 3.22p. We opened doors about 10 minutes late because we were waiting on walk in music. Showtime was still doing their on-camera standups. It really didn't matter much. There were prob 50-75 people waiting at the turnstiles. That's pretty typical of boxing though. Not a lot of fans show up right at doors. They wait until the main event. I always feel bad for the 1st bout. There are more staff in the arena at the moment than actual ticketholders. Showtime is actually still doing their mic checks. "Check, check." But I suppose for them it's more the glory of the actual fight than the energy of the arena. 

330p First bout is Gonzalez vs McLaurin. Turns out McLaurin is from the Twin Cities, my home! Yeah, sure. You betcha. All 6 of us in the arena are rooting for him! Oops. My Minnesota kid jsut got knocked down. And knocked down again. On the back of his shorts it reads "Lights Out." Fight stopped by Vic Draculich 1:56 sec of the first round. Too bad. McLaurin looked like a good kid. I know that has absolutely nothing to do with the sport. But that's why I'm not a sports reporter. I'm a lover not a fighter. 

The walk before entering the tunnel

3.36p Here's the bad thing about boxing. The entire day is timeed for a maximum number of rounds. Oftentimes the fights don't go the maximum amount of rounds, especially the early ones so we end up with 20 minutes of dead space between the fights. They try to fill up the dead air with loud music, but really, it's just dead air. And considering there are only, maybe 200 people total in the arena, it feels very lonely. 

The music has WAY too much bass. It's killing my ear drums. More isn't necessarily better boys. Sometime's it's just more. This isn't a night club. Your tunes have a different effect in an arena than Studio 54. Totally bugs me.  

Cotto on WWE-like ramp

Not a lot of radio activity. My team is the best in the biz so they take care of most issues. Occassionally I need to get involved but ususally it's just as as a "head's up" kind of thing or because someone wants to talk to their boss. They don't really need my expertise. These guys have been doing this for like 25 years. Most are retired educators. None of them do it for the money. They do it because it's fun and they like the environment. I take pride in that. I know I'm one of the reasons they love it at the Grand Garden. I don't manage by looking over people's shoulders. I loathe that so I chose to treat people the way I like to be treated. 

4.02p Next bout is Rabotte vs. Molina. 6 rounder. Both Molina & Rabotte chose not to walk up the WWE ramp. Smart choice. I wouldn't let my fighter do it. If he falls, his night, possibly career is over. Not worth the risk. I wonder why people don't think of this stuff. Or maybe I just overreact. 

The arena attendance has doubled. So maybe 400 people in here, maybe. One of the things that I noticed at my first boxing event was how quiet it was when the boxers were actually fighting. Until the crowd starts chanting and going nuts, the intimacy of the arena is such that you can hear everyone and what they're saying, especially if they've got a big mouth. It's kinda odd at first but you get used to it. Then when the bigger fights happen, the crowd is more vocal and it's not so strange. The DJ plays music in between rounds & bouts to help curb the silence.

This fight looks like it's going the distance. Good thing. It gives the 400 people who are here more bang for their buck. Spoke (wrote) too soon. Second undercard fight stopped at 1:38 of round 6.

4.30p Ok, time for me to go do some event management. Be back later.

This is what the fighter sees

8.05p Long break. I was out doing my thing. Doing my thing consisted of walking the buliding, taking care of some guests who had a complaint, going to meet my buddy Pete and his pals to hook him up with tics I got from a boxing pal, settle up some finances and quick meeting with Showtime on the celeb green room for May. Now I'm back in DQ's office with Trubes watching basketball, tweeting & going over UFC CAD stuff. This is pretty typical.

8.20p DQ gets up to leave. "Where are you going?" I accuse. He points out we should probably go watch the main event. Good point. We head down the locker room hallway to watch on the north end of the floor behind the press section and get caught before the Cotto and Mayorga do their walk. Turns out to be ok. I snap some twit pics and schmooze with old friends. 


Mayorga's ring walk music is a mix from "El Matador" from Los Fabulosos Cadillacs. Cotto walked in to a Frankie Cutlass Puerto Rico mix with Black Robs. The place does NOT like Mayorga. Definitely pro Cotto. Arena booed Mayorga in unison. 

Cotto & entourage doing ring walk

8.28p. Jimmy Lennon Jr is giving his ring announcements. Place is filled with just over 6,000 people. Ticket sales indicate 7,000 but turnstile count is just over 6,000. Place is lively. This is how boxing should be and normally is. Lots of Puerto Rican flags out there. I don't see any Nicaraguan ones.

Bob Byrd is the ref in charge. Coincidentaly he's also one of my employees. He refs too. I absolutely love seeing him work the ring. He's also one of the nicest guys I know. Apparently he sings too. He sang the National Anthem at a UNLV basketball game. Quel skills.

8.32p Round 1 The place is chanting COTTO COTTO. Not too exciting so far. My sidekick who wishes to remain nameless gives the round 1 to Cotto.

8.36 Round 2 Mayorga is making body shots. Crowd erupts. Sidekick gives it to Mayorga.

Looks like a ride at Disneyworld

8.40 Round 3 Cotto in black trunks, Mayorga in blue. Crowd cheers Mayorga when he taunts Cotto like a bully. Mayorga looks big. My sidekick next to me said he bets Mayorga will fail the drug test. He's not normally in this good of shape. Sidekick has round 3 for Cotto.

8.43p Round 4 Mayorga just motioned to his crotch. Wasn't there an old bowler who was famous for that DW-something? I digress. Cotto going after Mayorga with flurry of punches. He hits Mayorga flush a couple fo times. Mayorga is not affected. Now all's quiet on the Western Front. Quick 10 sec flurry before the bell.  Sidekick give it to Cotto, again.

8.47p Round 5 Cotto his Mayorga with vicious shots. Mayorga pounds back. Cotto still the better fighter but Mayorga not giving up. He's a brawler. Even a non-skilled pugilist like me can see that. Cotto hit Mayorga square. Mayorga nods as if to say, Bring it on, Bitch!" Sidekick (shocker) has Cotto.

Close Encounter lights

8.51p Round 6 Crowd chanting "COTTO COTTO." Boring round. Crowd is must have taken an Ambien. Showtiem has these lights that are ridiculously blinding, shooting right into the crowd. I'd be so mad if I were sitting in those sets and had that crap shining in my eyes. Can't wait for those complaints on Monday. Sidekick = Cotto.

8.55p Round 7 Something needs to happen. Atmosphere is dwingling. Zzzz. Here we go... Mayorga goes after Cotto! 10 sec left. Mayorga gets cheers from crowd for a little action. Sidekick still has Cotto. Gave up a great quote to justify it, "Activity outweighs one barrage." 

8.50p Round 8 Bob Byrd warns Mayorga about grabbing in back of head. Cotto very steady. Mayorga throwing wild punches. Sidekick gives it to Mayorga. No, not really. Just seeing if you're paying attention. 8 goes to Cotto.

9.03p Round 9 Mayorga and Cotto trading punches. More action this round. Mayorga looks tired, out of wind. He's flailing at this point. Cotto is doing what he neds to do. Picks his opportunity. Cotto is fighting Mayorga smartly. He's letting him expend energy. Sidekick give it to Cotto.

Massive LED cylinder

During the rounds Showtime cuts to a shot of Antonio Margarito on screens. Huge boos because he's a cheater, allegedly.

9.08p Round 10 There's a commotion in section 112. Las Vegas Metro Police head to sec 112. There's a fight in the stands. Probably the best fight of the night. But it was cool because collectively the entire arena turned to look at that fight, not the fight in the ring. You could literally see people turn. Anyhow, back to the professional fight. This was the worst round. Neither fighter is doing anything. Both are just dancing. Cotto jabs Mayorga in the face several times. Mayorga still standing, still flailing. Mayorga's eye is red. Can't tell if it's a cut. Sidekick has Cotto.

9.11p Round 11 Mayorga puts hands up to get the crowd going. He's calling out Cotto with his antics. Mayorga holding out hands like a thug, "What? Come at me!" Wow. Sidekick gave it to Mayorga. Said Cotto didn't even try. 

In ring after the fight

9.15p Round 12 Final round. Crowd is at its most animated of the night. 2:44 seconds into the 12th Cotto knocks down Mayorga. Byrd starts fight again after 8 count. Everyone on their feet. After mere seconds after being knocked down Mayorga gives up. Calls it himself to Bob Byrd. Ref waves his hands and calls an end to the bout. Thank God. Cotto comes over to Mayorga to make sure he's ok. Hugs him. 

Fight is over. There is a ridiculous number of people in the ring. We'll need to address this with the NV Commission and the promoter for the next fight. Everyone things they're important and should be in the ring. 

Fight is over

They're doing post fight interviews in the ring but no one can hear them because Showtime didn't give the arena an audio feed. Kind of a bummer. Everyone is leaving and it's time for me to go do the most important job of the night. Go take care of my boys and make sure they have refreshments for the debriefing. For those of you who know me, you know what that means. For those of you who don't know me, if you knew you'll wish you did.