I’m in Vegas covering the The Ultimate Fighter Finale for Fighters Only Magazine and I spent a few hours in a toasty meeting room lined with workout mats and media at The Palms. The light was crazy with incandescent spots, flourescent tubes, and splotch of blue daylight reflecting into the room.  It made for some interesting color temperature clashes.

Roy Nelson popped by first, doing a very thorough media workout, shadowboxing for five minutes, hitting pads for fifteen, then finishing up with more shadowboxing.  Back at UFC 104, some guys put in less than a minute.  Houston Alexander also worked out extensively, then gave a scrum interview, leaving the journalists walking away smiling, “That was a great interview!”

After Nelson and Alexander finished, Brandon Schaub and Matt Hammill did some shadowboxing and interviews for the press.

Jon Jones followed with another very extensive (real) workout and an impressive display with Muay Thai coach Phil Nurse.  I scurried around the mats trying to get shots while interviews took place with other fighters in the free spaces around the room.

Kimbo Slice finally arrived during his slot but due to his harsh weight cut, did not workout, but simply posed for the cameras and did a scrum interview.  Kimbo remembered Casey and I (and Ariel), as did all his boys, so we reminisced for a few short moments before being cut off by the rushed schedule.  He looked a bit worn and in pain from the cut, so I didn’t pester him, but I’m awfully curious about these amazing steaks everyone in the TUF house brags about.

Marcus Jones was in the area doing prefight interviews and photoshoots for the show, he stopped in as well for a short interview with AOL Fanhouse.  I have to say, he’s ridiculously likeable and friendly, and a truly enthusiastic fan of MMA.  It’s quite endearing to see the 6’6″ Jones show off his new techniques and how he finally learned to hold his hands up properly.  As mentioned in a previous post, his commercial for this TUF season really got to me, I felt it was the best one I’d seen and really captured the part of fighting I love most.

Here’s the gallery, courtesy of Fighters Only Magazine.