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Hey fellow Bloggers, 

So this past weekend was a historic one in Toronto. The first MMA event to be held in the beautiful City of Toronto. First came the Fan Expo which allowed fans to meet some of there favourite fighters and take photos with them and get autographs. The event took place at the Direct Energy Centre on Friday and Saturday. I was one of the people who attended Friday. It was a great event and it all started from 10am-6pm. The lineup began very early as you could get your tickets starting from 8am. We managed to lineup for Rashad Evans and an hour later came out empty handed because he was only at that booth for 1 hour. We than tried to find the next booth he would be at but found ourselves in another line, which would be none other than BJ. Penn. This was one of the major problems, you could be in line for 1-2 hours and still come out empty handed, no photos, no autographs. My friend and I got to meet Mr.Penn and Mark Coleman happened to be there too. Penn was a cool guy but seemed to have more of an ego than the other fighters. In between we also met some other fighters that were near the line so we made the most of our time. Throughout the day I got to meet Jon Fitch, Chandella Powell, Eddie Wineland, Matt Mitrione and some other great fighters, but the main autographs we wanted were Clay Guida and Rashad Evans. Time was expiring and we still did not meet the two fighters we wanted to meet. So just happens that Diego sanchez was standing right beside me but my friend was not around me at that moment so I had nobody to take a picture of me and him. What a shame! No line, nothing, he was right beside me. Anyways we ended up getting in a line which was to meet Diego Sanchez but was ending in 20 minutes. Rumour was that Clay Guida was the fighter coming over, so we waited and waited over an hour until finally we got to meet Clay Guida. He was pretty zoned out, apparently watching the wiegh ins so he did not sign or meet any fans during that period. Well it doesn't matter, the main thing is we got a photo of him and an autograph. 

UFC is a very smart company and they know how to utilize their fighters and stars to make them more money. So they came up with a VIP line, if you buy a t shirt from that booth you get to skip the line and enter the VIP line. T shirts ranged from $25-50. The problem is if you want to meet 5 fighters are you really going to buy 5 t shirts. Of course this was only for the main fighters but still pretty ridiculous. We unfortunately did not get to meet Anderson Silva or Dan Hardy and I am sure I am forgetting another 2-3 people we wanted to meet. At he end of the day we did find another Rashad Evans line with just under 45 minutes until the expo closed. So my friend came through and bought a shirt from the booth granting us VIP entrance. Now apparently I was not allowed because it is only for those who buy something which is stupid because it should count towards me too. Well I was the camera man and gave my t shirt to my friend to get signed which Rashad did. I than asked him for a picture and he gave me some kind of look I thought he was going to punch me or something lol. I looked at the picture after and he was smiling while I looked kind of dazed. So I got to meet Rashad and got an autograph and picture but I sure wish I could have looked a little happy in the picture haha.

It was a fun day, and yea sure you can complain about a lot of things, like the lines, the outrageous food prices, but after all were all fans and at the end of the day getting photos with a bunch of fighters and meeting them personally is something priceless and makes it all worth it. The price of $35 is nothing and I think that is because they know food, shirts and lines will be of a much higher cost.

Matt Mitrione was one of the coolest fighters to talk to, he was a really nice guy. Chandella was also a cool person to meet and I wish I would have met Aryianny but I ended up being in a different line while my friend was in hers with no service on his phone. So depressing, but at least I got a photo of her, I am just not in it. It was a lot of fun and me and my friend both got UFC shirts full of autographs that we can later frame.