I was completely stunned by the surprise as she told me it was floor seat tickets so we're going to have a good sight of the ring. I can hardly describe how happy I was. I insisted on paying her my ticket of course but she refused to take it. It was an early graduation gift, so she said. God knows how she found the tickets in the very last minute and it was on reasonable price, according to her. Probably on Gumtree or something. (It reminds me to preach her to never trust Gumtree.)
So we went to Etihad Stadium on Sunday for the game. Despite that UFC is not quite a big sport in Oz, unlike football, rugby, cricket or horse racing, there were thousands of people came to watch the game. Again, Melbourne has proved that it helds the best sport events.
We got there early and grabbed a breakfast. The door opened at 10 am and not long after the first match started. There were several men matches before the main began. Some of the athletes were Australian, fighting against (mostly) USA athletes. So we both rooted for the Australians. Well, the Australian athletes received the loudest cheer from the supporters of course.
About two and a half hours later, the two female matches began. The first match was between Joanna Jedrzejczyk (Champ) vs Valerie Letourneau. It ended with Joanna keeping the strawweight belt by defeating the challenger, Valerie. Although she lost, Valerie did put up a good fight before she got knocked out in round 4, receiving a loud cheer from the audience for her good game in the end.
A surprisingly different result turned out for the main match between Ronda Rousey (Champ) vs Holly Holm however. Being a big deal in the USA and being the champion, Rousey was the favourite in the match and everyone, including my friend (who is apparently a HUGE fan of her) was rooting for her. It was unfortunate that she got knocked out on the second round by the challenger and the bantamweight belt was taken away from her.
I have to admit that I thought I would not enjoy watching this kind of game. Being a mix of kickboxing and martial art, UFC is a rough game to watch. But turned out I did enjoy it so much and I was super excited watching them fighting! Now I'm thinking about joining a kickboxing class. (Hmm, should I?)
It was definitely one of the lifetime experiences for me. Not to mention that I'm part of the history for witnessing Rousey got beaten up for the first time on her 13th match. I heartedly feel sorry for my friend, though. I don't think she has recovered from Rousey's loss . . . Nevertheless, I thanked her for taking me to the game. It was one of the happiest days of my life!
Until next post.
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