Well, Friday was the day to be there this year... Saturday Jon Jones' line was 2 hours deep 10 minutes before he was supposed to be there so I didn't bother with it. I saw him later at UFC 196 so he must have flown to Columbus aftter the press conference Friday night and then back to Vegas Saturday afternoon for 196. Porier, Tecia Torres, and Ashlee Evans-Smith were all really accessible at the Headrush booth. I saw Royce walking around chatting with some people at the Monster Energy booth. I got to talk to Matt Brown for a couple minutes, he was pretty cool. Rumble had a long line and I was tired so I didn't get to say hey to him, the guy was being really cool to everybody from what I saw, he is intimidating, looks just like the monster he is in the cage. My wife really enjoyed Faber, imagine that... At the same time Faber was there, TJ Dillishaw was at the MusclePharm area, the wife spotted TJ walking out of the expo and I got a quiick hey how ya doing from him. It was cool to talk to Garbrandt and Ashlee Evans-Smith because I saw them fight in Pittsburgh a couple weeks ago and they both won, Evans-Smith was really pumped and probably the nicest fighter I spoke to this year.
If you've never been to the Arnold and you're within a couple hours it's pretty fun and surreal, the martial arts competitions on Saturday were a full hour late getting started, which is normal, some guy was trying to sell a body protector that looked like a pregnant belly, and they had an Aqua Bag booth, those things are really cool.
Sadly the MMA fighter appearances are way down this year compared to the past. I don't know if Reebok is to blame or UFC 196 being the same weekend, but I hope there are more fighters next year.