The one chat with UFC legend ‘I’ll never forget’... and a mad NBA dash: SJ’s Miami Diary
Welcome to SJ’s diary here in Miami ahead of UFC 314!
DAY ONE
The trip started by jumping on a plane from Sydney. I jumped on a Qantas flight, got a bit of extra legroom some would say, and made a 15-and-a-half-hour plane ride to Dallas-Fort Worth Texas.
UFC 314: Volkanovski vs Lopes | SUN 13 APRIL | Australia’s Alexander Volkanovski looks to become a two-time World Champion as he takes on Brazil’s Diego Lopes for the vacant Undisputed Featherweight title, in Miami | Order Now with Main Event on Kayo Sports. Main Event on Kayo Sports and Foxtel is the exclusive home of UFC Pay-Per-View.
There I had a three-hour stopover before I jumped on a connecting flight down to Miami for what has been and is going to be an unreal week for UFC 314.
On the plane I tried to sleep but as always I couldn’t. I suck at sleeping on planes so I had a few snacks on the flight. It was actually good they had like a little snack station that you could access throughout the whole flight so I had a few bags of chips, chocolate, just the usual plain snacks.
I got a few hours’ sleep, maybe three quarters of the way through the flight I sort of fell asleep and maybe slept the last sort of four hours of the flight. The stopover went fairly quick. I called back home, got a smoothie, pretty much doomed scrolled on my phone to kill time but once I landed in Miami things were happening fairly quick.
My connecting flight from Dallas to Miami got delayed. It was meant to run as smooth as land in Miami, check in, relax for a little bit, freshen up and then make our way across the road to Miami Heat game but that wasn’t the case, so I wasn’t able to check into the hotel.
I pretty much jumped out of the cab, dumped my bags, got a bag tag, and said I’ll be back in a couple hours to check in properly. Dusty as off the flight, I ran across the road and got stuck into some work straight away.
That was actually a real cool experience though because I’d never been through media access, I’d never been sort of behind the scenes from the media angle before it. I’ve only been to two other NBA games so being able to do that here at a stadium or in an arena that as a kid I grew up watching the LeBrons, the Dwyane Wades and the Heat put together their championship runs was pretty cool, like really cool for me.
I got to sort of go sit court side, interview Patty Pimblett and then enjoy a game basketball. So a really cool first afternoon for my trip here in Miami.
DAY TWO
You wake up for your first day in Miami. Let’s go get some breakfast. I just thought I’d come downstairs, sit out by the pool, order some brekkie.
I ordered just two scrambled eggs on toast, bacon, fried potato, a side of fruit and had a coffee. It worked out to be close to 90 Aussie dollars back home. I just was like, ‘You know what. That ain’t gonna be happening every day. I can’t be justifying that in my head, spending 90 bucks on brekkie’.
Day two was unreal, a really cool experience where it was a long day – damn, like those fighters and the rounds they’ve got to do and even what the media does in terms of just being stationed in a room for the whole day waiting for the athletes to roll through.
Everything about it was just really cool to experience. I’ve had some minor meetings with some fighters in the past but seeing them on fight week there’s a different energy about them and talking and engaging with them, asking them some questions, gaining some insights into what the week looks like for them. Even what that day was looking like for them.
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These athletes coming through speaking to us, answering our questions, being really engaged in what we’re having to say and they’re in the middle of a weight cut. They’re water loading, you can see it physically in them that they’re not necessarily there but I just had a whole heap of respect for how they showed up.
Obviously a large portion of their job is to fight but the other small portion of it is to sell the fight. Seeing how they go about doing that it was a pretty cool experience.
I enjoyed speaking to all of them but man, honestly Bryce Mitchell was the guy that really surprised me.
He’s obviously got his critics and it’s been well publicised what his views are but I think as a person he was very easy to talk to. He made you feel pretty valued and was really engaging. That was cool. But they all were.
Obviously Volk was the cream. He was at the top of all of that. Volk doesn’t like a short answer. He made it very easy to have a conversation with him. My takeaway from the day was just so impressed by how they handled themselves and they just got me more excited. They sold the fight to me essentially. It got me more excited for the card this week.
In sport people talk about the physical side. People will talk about the knockouts, people will talk about in rugby league the tries or the steps, but the mental toughness eats up a far greater portion of that pie than people realise so I was always more intrigued to come over here and not talk about or get an understanding on knockouts.
I want to get a feel for how they’re approaching things and Volk in particular, man, hearing him speak about his time away from the fight, how he reset himself but always stayed dialed in on his training.
I certainly could relate on some level to what I was hearing but man when they’re at that elite level and they’re going into an arena to go one on one with someone it’s a little bit different.
DAY THREE
This was one interview that I was probably the most excited to be a part of. Jorge Masvidal is a guy that I loved watching.
I was just a massive fan of how he carried himself, how he was so real, authentic, unapologetic and just represented his people in a manner that was like, man you’re the dude bro. You’re the guy.
So getting to meet Jorge, we pull up to this sort of factory. It’s funny because when we heard we were interviewing him at his place we instantly presumed that it’d be some Miami beach house somewhere but in Jorge fashion we pull up to this industrial area and it’s like a screen printing area and then upstairs it’s just this podcast studio. We had a little bit of a chuckle over that. Why did we even think it wasn’t gonna be anything other than this?
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But it was perfect. It was a perfect setting, it set the tone for the style of chat we had which was cool. Jorge opened up about his struggles, he opened up about what Miami and the people of Miami meant to him and what inspired him to sort of create and make change.
Again just another athlete I felt I could deeply relate to. Whether I could or not in my mind what he was saying was just so relatable and it was a conversation and interview I got so much out of. It was one that I’ll never forget, like that chat with Jorge – the half an hour or however long we had with him – I’m not gonna forget that any time soon.
Jorge spoke about what was the coolest part of being him and he spoke about inspiring people or hearing feel-good stories off the back of what he’d done in the octagon.
That hit home with me because people don’t realise as athletes, and this is where I sort of felt like I could relate, when you sign a contract to be a UFC fighter or an NRL player you’re not signing that with the understanding of everything that comes with that. You’re signing it thinking, ‘Oh man I get to play rugby league full-time how good’.
That’s the best part about it. But the byproduct of being a good player and being a good person or being a good fighter and being a good person are the stories you hear through other people about how you inspire them.
I got sent plenty of messages throughout my career of how I made someone’s day with something I did on the field. Someone was going through it pretty tough and then they saw me speak about something or hardship that I was going through at the time and how it inspired them to get through their own struggles.
Jorge had the exact same stories which I always really valued and to hear him value them too that was like, ‘Bro I get you. I fully understand it’. So we spoke about that, he gave me a few fist pumps throughout the interview where he could relate to me as well. It was a really cool conversation.
After that I actually got to get outside. The weather was nice, I got to breathe in some fresh air and soak up a little bit of parts of Miami. I went down to Little Havana.
It’s like a portion of Miami where I think it’s heavily influenced by the Cuban culture and I had some lunch, walked the streets and soaked in a little bit of the culture there, which was really cool.
It’s been a busy few days in Miami, but things are only going to get busier. I’ll be asking a question at the official press conference on Thursday and then there are weigh-ins on Friday before the fight card on Saturday night.
This fight would have been getting booked by me back home on the couch. That’s the crazy thing.
I would have just been at home on the couch. It would have been a Sunday arvo and I would have been booking that fight for sure.
So to be here and get the insights and meet some of the fighters, hear the tone, get up close and personal with it all – it takes it to a whole new level of investment for me.
There’s gonna be a level of me watching these fights just riding it purely, like there’s not going to be a second that goes by where I’m not gonna be on the edge of my seat.
UFC 314: Volkanovski vs Lopes | SUN 13 APRIL | Australia’s Alexander Volkanovski looks to become a two-time World Champion as he takes on Brazil’s Diego Lopes for the vacant Undisputed Featherweight title, in Miami | Order Now with Main Event on Kayo Sports. Main Event on Kayo Sports and Foxtel is the exclusive home of UFC Pay-Per-View.