Press Trip Diary

In the middle of January THQ took me over to Dublin to see upcoming next-gen brawler UFC Undisputed. As well as getting some quality hands on time with the game, the gathered press got to see a UFC event live at the O2 Arena. This is the story of my trip: booze, UFC fighters and a wet patch on my trousers included.

9.24am Jesus Christ my head hurts. When the hell am I?

9.25am Ah, I remember now: I’m in Dublin to cover Undisputed, the new UFC game from THQ and Yuke’s. A coach is picking us up in roughly half an hour; we’re going to the O2 Arena to check out the game, and then we’ve got front-row seats for tonight’s fight. Ace!

9.26am I appear to be quite hungover, but I’m still doing better than on my previous visit to Ireland. Last time I ended up with alcohol poisoning…

9.55am Due to a lack of time, I was forced to choose between taking a shower and having breakfast. I opted for the former, but the hotel buffet is looking mighty tempting right about now. Is there time for a lighting raid?

10.02am I board the coach, slightly dazed from the impact of the world’s fastest breakfast. A piece of scalding hot sausage appears to be burning a hole in my right lung.

10.12am Okay, I’m beginning to wake up a bit now. From what I can remember, the main fight at tonight’s event is between a bloke called Rich Franklin, and someone called Dan Henderson. Both men have been middleweight champions within various Mixed Martial Arts organisations. I don’t know much about UFC or MMA, but the consensus among my more learned colleagues is that the match will be close and that Franklin will win.

10.38am Our coach arrives at the O2 Dublin. In a groggy stupor, I manage to spill water all over my leg. I now look like I’ve had “a little accident”. A good start to the event…

10.58am Thankfully my leg has dried out by the time we are finally hurried into the venue, up a glass elevator and into a large hospitality lounge. At one end of the room is a bar, and nearby is the familiar sight of a dozen-odd flatscreen TVs hooked up to Xboxes. At the other end of the room is a large screen, in front of which are around forty cushion-stool things with goodie bags on them. The uniform rows of black baseball caps looks like some kind of bizarre war memorial.

11.04am I gratefully accept a cup of coffee from a friendly Irish woman behind the bar. “Hangover?” she enquires.

11.28am I mingle with the other journalists. At a rough guess, there are around 40 of us: there’s our small group of Brits, quite a few Irish writers, and the usual assortment of Euro-journalists. Lots of people are discussing tonight’s event: Franklin is the crowd favourite, but I’ve also heard that the best fight may be come earlier in the evening: a grudge match between Mark Coleman and Mauricio “Shogun” Rua.

11.30am We are called to the War Memorial – it’s time to take a look at Undisputed. I’m quite excited: I’ve not seen a huge amount of the game, but what I have seen looked interesting. This is supposed to be quite a big title for THQ, so my expectations are fairly high.

11.32am Nice goodie bag! In addition to the baseball cap, there’s a decent T-shirt too.

11.34am Well, Undisputed certainly looks pretty tasty: large fighters, a slick frame rate and lots of brutal-looking injuries, inflicted in real-time. According to Nevin Dravinski, the product manager giving the presentation, each character model is made up of roughly 30,000 polygons. I’m too hungover to count, so I’ll take his word for it.

11.40am It looks like there’s a lot to learn here. In addition to the bits where both fighters are standing up and belting each other, there are loads of floor-based clinches and holds. There’s also something called The Transition System, a set of grappling controls which involve moving the right stick in quarter circle motions. The direction of movement relates to which part of the screen your fighter occupies, and where they’re moving to. I don’t fully understand, but perhaps all will become clear later.

11.47am A large percentage of the room is very excited – Michael “The Count” Bisping has shown up. He’s a UFC fighter from Lancashire, apparently – and he wants to challenge Mr Dravinski.

11.55am Bisping emerges victorious! Well done that man. The presentation is now over, so everyone heads for the consoles. But minutes later we are called back to the screen…

12.15pm … because a very muscular bald man has arrived on the scene. It’s Dana White, owner of the UFC! And he wants to challenge Bisping!

12- 12.30pm In a mighty display of gaming prowess, Dana makes short work of Bisping. “The Count” isn’t too happy about this and demands a rematch, only to lose a second time. It seems that the owner of UFC is quite a solid gamer! Or perhaps the game is rigged; it’s his franchise, after all!

12.31pm With the second fight over, I make a dash for one of the consoles. For my first match I choose Franklin and play against Henderson. I lose within the first 90 seconds of the opening round. Ouch. I hope this evening’s fight is less one-sided!

12.45pm I only find time for three more embarrassing defeats before the UK press pack is hurried upstairs to an interview area. We are joined by the French group, and then by White and Bisping.

12.47pm Dana White really is enormous – he absolutely towers over the rather nervous-looking Frenchies next to him. He grins. “How’d ya like the ass-whooping I gave Bisping?” The Count shrugs. “I got my arse kicked… fair enough!” he admits.

12.48pm Michael reveals that he used to run Street Fighter II tournaments on his SNES when he was at school, “…like a sad bastard.” Apparently his favourite character was Ryu – and he pronounces it correctly too: “Ryoo”, rather than “Rye-yoo”. One of the French hacks asks if the virtual Michael Bisping is better than the real-world Michael Bisping. “I fookin’ hope not!” he exclaims.

12.49-13.04ish Michael and Dana both seem like pretty decent guys. Then again, I wouldn’t say anything if they didn’t – either one could easily rip off my arms and beat me to death with the wet end. To his credit, Dana really seems as if he wants this game to be a decent representation of UFC – and he’s more than happy to acknowledge the myriad of flaws that dogged the last game.

13.15pm With the round table complete, it’s time to pay Undisputed some serious attention. At first my performance continues to be what can only be described as piss-weak, but after a handful of drubbings I begin to get the hang of a few things. Standing combat plays quite similarly to a boxing simulator, in the sense that it’s no good to hammer the buttons and hope for the best. You have to carefully pick your moment, find an opening and mix up the height levels at which you attack. With perseverance, I start to notch up a few victories. Forrest Griffin, it transpires, is very good at kicking people in the head! That shouldn’t be so surprising, since he’s the strongest character available today.

2.19pm The last hour has flown past. I’ve still not quite got the hang of the transition system, but I’m getting there. There’s a lot to learn and keep track of, but it seems pretty rewarding – particularly when you knock someone out and are treated to a slow-motion replay of fist meeting face.

2.30ish Time for a quick chat with Neven Dravinski. I won’t say too much here as you can find the full interview here, but he seems like a good guy.

2.50 – 5.19pm Back to the game. Over the next few hours, many of the other journalists slowly disappear from the function room – but the Brits stay put, and stay playing. This is quite notable, particularly since the bar is free and we’ve reached the time at which it’s socially acceptable to drink. People are drinking, but they’re playing too; there’s even a decent bit of competition between us.

5.20pm Neven re-appears and offers to play a few rounds with us. My fight with him is pretty close, but I eventually manage to knock him out. I just beat the developer at his own game! Okay, so he probably let me win… but he was also kind enough to give me some pointers on the Transition system. I can now force a downed opponent into an arm-lock. Nice one!

5.41pm It’s finally time for UFC 93 to begin. We are led down a corridor, through a door… and then suddenly we’re at the top of the O2 Arena. We are greeted by the sound of roughly 9000 people, all of them chomping at the bit. We wind our way down through the crowds to our seats, barely 20 feet from the ring. The atmosphere is incredible.

5.49pm The first fight is about to start: Nate Mohr versus Dennis Siver. In the grand scheme of things it’s a fairly minor match-up – there are 10 matches this evening, but only the last five or six will be shown on TV – but I’m quite pumped up none the less.

5.50pm They’re off! The crowd roars. The two men circle each other, darting at each other and trading blows. For the first two rounds, neither man gains a decisive upper hand… then nearly four minutes in the third, Siver delivers a fierce roundhouse to his opponent. Mohr goes flying across the ring, looking up just in time to see his rival charging in his direction. The furious German rains blows upon the downed Yank, and the referee halts the match.

6.09pm That was brilliant – not quite as violent as I’d expected, but pretty fierce nonetheless. I can’t wait to see some more.

6.10pm – 10.45ish For the next four hours, we sit and watch a variety of men pummel and bend seven shades out of each other. To do full justice to the event would require far more space than I have here, but suffice to say I was thoroughly gripped throughout. A few moments stand out for me:

– The fight between Irishman Thomas Egan, and the English John Hathaway. Both young men were making their UFC debut. The fight itself was easily won by Hathaway, but the Irish crowd backed Egan every step of the way. After the end of the match, Egan thanked the crowd and humbly apologised for not winning – receiving thunderous applause for his trouble.

– Watching former Brazilian street fighter Rousimar Palhares as he crawled all over Jeremy Horn like some form of fleshy spider. It was a fairly weird thing to watch, but Palhares easily won over the judges with his fine display of jujitsu strangulation.

– The sheer song-and-dance as the evening moved into its second, televised half. The lights dimmed, dramatic videos rolled across the big screens, and Baba O Riley boomed over the speakers. The Americans certainly know how to engineer a grand show!

– The Shogun vs Coleman fight. I’ve subsequently discovered that many UFC fans felt this was a bit sloppy, but to me it was an amazingly tense stand-off. You see, a little while ago Coleman was allegedly responsible for breaking Shogun’s arm in a fight – and this time the Brazilian wanted to get revenge. The fight went three rounds: Shogun seemed to have the fight sewn-up, but then Coleman refused to give up and pulled himself back into it. Indeed, the large American would have probably won on points, but Shogun eventually knocked his man down with a barrage of blows in final moments of the last round.

11.20pm It’s all over… and Dan Henderson has just defeated Rich Franklin. It’s odd really: after the growling animosity of the Shogun-Coleman bout, the main event seemed a bit tame. When Franklin’s head cut open after an accidental headbutt, there seemed to be some genuine concern on Henderson’s part as to whether his opponent was okay. Or perhaps not – maybe I was just a bit drunk.

At any rate, one thing is clear: it’s been an amazing night. Our party leaves the O2 and joins the massive throng heading back into town. Cars are left stranded amid the streams of drunken pedestrians, and every so often there’s a loud beep as some scally leans inside a vehicle and hammers on someone’s horn. Tonight was my first UFC event, but I dare say it won’t be my last.