The weigh-ins for UFC 131 took place at the beautiful Jack Poole Plaza on the harbour front of Vancouver this afternoon and all the fighters on the card made weight as they were supposed to. Joe Rogan was on hand to do the honors and there were no real fireworks or staredowns to speak of with the exception of Kenny Florian coming in as the advertised villain, wearing a Boston Bruins jersey.
He was greeted by intense boos from approximately a couple thousand fans on hand and on the flip side, opponent Diego Nunes showed a bit of pizazz by wearing a Canucks jersey and firing off a flurry of punches as the fans cheered in delight.
That fight is not going to be a cake walk for Florian by any means.
Jack Poole Plaza is where the 2010 Winter Olympic cauldron stands and it was a pleasure to soak it all in with that structure standing tall behind.
In the hours leading up to the weigh-ins the fans were treated with a UFC Fight Club Q&A session with the always entertaining Stephan “The American Psycho” Bonnar and UFC play-by-play man Mike Goldberg.
Bonnar was a comedian from the get-go and he ended up giving the fans the shirt off his back—literally, as he ran out of the stack of T-shirts he had brought with him.
The highlight of the hour, and there were many with Bonnar, came when the topic of Josh Koscheck and his reported lawsuit against him came up. He was a good sport and in the midst of the discussion someone tossed an “Ultimate Fighter: Team Koscheck” shirt on stage, to which he promptly picked it up and wiped his blue-jeaned ass with it.
The crowd roared in approval. The irony came later when Bonnar ran out of t-shiorts to give out to the fans who were requesting them. Some bold fan asked Bonnar if they could have the one he was wearing so he gave it to her straight off his back.
As he sat there shirtless feeling awkward, he had no choice but to grab Koscheck’s shirt again and put it on.
The show ended with the fans gathered around him while he ripped it off to shreds in Hulk Hogan like fashion.
Other highlights included him telling about when he fought Lyoto Machida in Brazil and took a boat deep in to the Amazon to the event, where he said he felt like he was in “Enter the Dragon,” and realized he was the poor schmuck fighting Bruce Lee, and him suggesting an “Ultimate Fighter All Stars” show, although he stated he never gets what he wants in the UFC.
Stay tuned to Bleacher Report for all things UFC 131, including the latest UFC 131 results, fight card analysis, UFC 131 news and live reaction from Vancouver.
Dwight Wakabayashi is a Feature Columnist for Bleacher Report MMA (also a Correspondent for MMACanada.net).
Catch him on Twitter @wakafightermma.
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