Back to Work; UFC Hits Philly!

Got the call from ESPN to cover UFC 101: Declaration a day before leaving for vacation in the Outer Banks, and accepted the assignment. It meant driving overnight from OBX to arrive in Philly on Saturday in time for the event, as well as packing the family into a hotel for the night, but helped break up the drive to Northern NJ.

After a nice relaxing week in OBX with the family, filled with GREAT seafood, weather, and some good boarding, we packed up and left OBX around 3am on Saturday morning, and began the trek to Philly. After an 8:30am stop for some fine breakfast... CRACKER BARREL! We finished up the trek, arriving at the Sheraton Society Hill in Philadelphia around noon.

Snafu #1: For the first time in as long as I can remember, they would not let us check in early, so I now had my wife and two kids (still in PJ's) in the lobby. We got the kids changed and had the hotel hold our bags and all my photo gear, and (although I would have rather been sleeping) took a walk in Philly to show my kids Independence Hall and the Liberty Bell.

Snafu#2: The freakin' Liberty Bell and Independence Hall were closed!!! Person of Importance arriving (later found out from UFC's Diann Brizzolara that the First Lady was visiting as she too was shut out from viewing), so it was a quick bite to eat and back to the hotel to wait it out...

Finally got in around 2:30, caught an hour nap, packed up and headed over to the Wachovia Center. Quick iPhone image of the building (do not attempt while driving, one day this will catch up with me) Love the UFC, several hours before doors open, and the lots are filling and people are waiting on line to get in. You never see this with boxing.

After meeting up with a few people in the press room and having one of the better press dinners in recent memory, made my way to the Octagon to find my spot and get ready for the 1st bout of what would be a long night with 11 bouts in all.

Evening began with Jesse Lennox running his record to 15-1-0, as he spoiled Danillo Villefort's debut in the UFC by 3rd round stoppage due to cuts. (Turned out the cut was actually caused by a headbutt, tough break for Villefort, but the cut didn't look that bad, of course who am I too say, I'm safe behind a camera...hehe)




In a battle of Georges, George Sotiropoulos defeated George Roop via kimura at 1:59 of the 2nd round...




In a battle of Ultimate Fighter 7 teammates, Matt Riddle bested Dan Cramer via 3 round decision...




Yet another bit of controversy, as Alessio Sakara was handed a gift 3 round decision over Thales Leites. I actually was shooting Leites at the fight's conclusion (2nd image), sure that he would be the winner, kinda got screwed on that one...




John Howard squeaked by Tamdan McCrory via split decision...




Jersey's own Kurt Pellegrino blanked Josh Neer over 3 rounds...and left him looking very frustrated at the end.





Ricardo Almeida may have pointed Kendall Grove toward the exit sign of the UFC with a 3 round win...



In a shocker Ultimate Fighter Season 7 winner Amir Sadollah was stopped by Johny Hendricks in only 29 seconds, of course this was not without controversy, as the stoppage appeared very early, although Sadollah was hurt, and Hendricks may have finished him cleanly...I was particularly happy with the sequence of shots of Hendricks jube, thankfully, since I had zero action from the first 20 seconds.





Aaron Riley blanked Shane Nelson over 3 rounds...



Finally, approaching midnight it was time for the co-feature, UFC Middleweight Champion Anderson "The Spider" Silva's venture into the light heavyweight division to face former LH Champion and crowd favorite Forrest Griffin. Griffin pounded his chest, while Silva feigned being scared.




Which lasted all of 3 minutes as Silva made a statement and hammered the former champ into the ground quickly sending notice to everyone at light heavyweight.







Then I had the good fortune of being in a good location to capture Anderson Silva standing on top of the cage in celebration, first time I've seen this, and it ran on ESPN.com moments after the fight ended.




Shot off a couple of quick ones to the photo desk and got set for the main event the UFC Lightweight Championship, BJ Penn against #1 contender Kenny Florian, 4 high quality rounds, until the champion Penn dropped Florian and caught him in a textbook rear naked choke forcing Florian to tapout.







Happy with the results I got over the course of the night. This was the first UFC I've covered with the 1D Mark III, and I thought the difference with the high iso was tremendous over the Mark IIN's.

Had some nice play with the images as well, including being featured on the main page of sportsshooter.com, and a full ZOOM gallery on ESPN.com ( http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/flash/zoomGallery?section=gen&photoGalleryId=4387610 )




The trip ended with me turning down shooting the Yankees-Red Sox game that night in the Bronx (yes it killed me to do so) and instead keeping my promise to head to the NJ Aquarium with the kids, which in retrospect was much more fun, I even got to pet a shark, and take some B&W iPhone penguin shots...what's Derek Jeter got on that?

NEXT UP: The United Football League Presser announcing the name and uniform of the NY Franchise on Thursday.

Read More......