Jon Anik acquired a sneak peek of Sphere earlier than UFC 306, and knew that his broadcast companions have been getting into chilly — which made all of it that extra particular for the longtime lead commentator.
“So all week, I used to be kind of marinating in the truth that Joe Rogan and Daniel Cormier, and my twin brother [Jason], and all of those individuals weren’t going to have seen any of this till they walked in there on Saturday evening,” Anik stated on Between the Hyperlinks. “And given all that my Saturday holds, I’m grateful that I used to be aware about a few of this as a result of spectacular doesn’t even start to explain it. A broadcasting expertise of a lifetime for me.
“And it sounds ungrateful to say, ‘Please give us one other shot in there,’ however that’s all, I feel, a variety of us saved feeling. It was simply so wonderful. I imply, Diego Lopes placing his arms within the air — my brother captured it — if there’s a coliseum behind him. Bro, it was completely unbelievable, begin to end, and I do suppose 10 fights is the precise technique to do it. I’d be fascinated to see how the UFC, and the way our stay manufacturing group would strategy a second likelihood in there on the subject of struggle card, and thematically what you’d do, whether or not it was a celebration of the UFC, or as Daniel Cormier would love, the Stars and Stripes, however simply unimaginable. Simply unimaginable.
“I feel lots of people are suggestive with this kind of merging of sports activities, artwork, and leisure, that with venues sooner or later, there’s a variety of issues that might occur from right here by way of venue development and the whole lot. However to be part of it, very particular, and simply give us one other shot. Only one extra shot.”
Rogan returned for his first occasion since June’s UFC 303 card for the Noche UFC themed occasion, capped off by Merab Dvalishvili’s bantamweight title win towards Sean O’Malley. Anik says his good good friend, colour commentator, and host of one of many largest podcasts on the planet — like everybody else — was completely surprised by what he noticed at Sphere.
“So he’s seen all of it, he’s a renaissance man, way more that than me,” Anik stated about Rogan. “I nonetheless felt convicted in the truth that he can be successfully blown away, and yeah, simply jaw-dropped, and ‘Oh my gosh,’ and kind of one visible upstages the one which got here earlier than it.
“We went all the best way as much as the 400 part — as excessive as you may go — which [are] a number of the finest seats to do our pay-per-view open, and I really didn’t fairly get down in time. So we had a little bit little bit of lead navigation by way of our throw to the following piece, however it was insane to see [Rogan and Cormier’s] reactions for the primary time and also you suppose you realize what you’re strolling into, however you actually don’t.”
UFC 306 got here with a number of attention-grabbing fights and storylines, however there have been naysayers having points with the general card high quality for an occasion that was puffed up as a lot as this was.
Whereas the whole lot was unforgettable and a landmark telecast for the historical past of sports activities, Anik desires yet one more likelihood at being the lead voice for one more occasion, one thing resembling the depth of the upcoming October pay-per-view playing cards.
“Whenever you have a look at the struggle playing cards for UFC 307 and UFC 308 on paper, Jose Aldo’s preventing on the prelims in Salt Lake Metropolis, UFC 308 — I don’t say this hyperbolically — perhaps the most effective struggle card I’ve ever been assigned,” Anik defined. “Go to Wikipedia and lookup UFC 308. So simply think about, for a second, UFC 307 or UFC 308, on paper, Khamzat Chimaev vs. Robert Whittaker, at Sphere f*cking Vegas, and inform me we couldn’t successfully change the sport eternally.
“This was a tremendous expertise, I simply suppose we want yet one more shot.”
