I’m not sure what I’ll remember more, the crowd which was so loud that my ears are still ringing today…or the fact that I have now seen 20,000 Affliction t-shirts and never want to see one again.
The show was amazing, George won, Serra was dominated, and the crowd went wild. The UFC has never experienced a Canadian crowd before, but one of the main reasons that WWE does so many of their PPV events up in Canada is because of how incredible the crowds are on TV. In Wrestling there are four sure-fire crowds that can change an event. Chicago, New York, Toronto and Montreal (with Philly, and Calgary being close runners up). Montreal showed that it’s one of those crowds.
Of the 20k in attendance, a good 15k of them had to be out of towners as was evident on Friday and Saturday nights by the thousands of buff men in Affliction t-shirts wandering the streets of Montreal.
On Friday night when we arrived, we saw Dana White (UFC President) milling on the street with a bunch of fans. Of course that was the one night I forgot my camera. Zut as they say in Quebec.
Overall we had a really good time, even though it was pretty obvious Montreal wasn’t prepared for the onslaught of fans. Restaurants, clubs, and stores all seemed unable to cope with the massive influx of people. Most places were understaffed, and service was slow and horrible, except for Saturday night when we went to a terrific little Italian joint for dinner.