Ultimate Fighting Fits Right In City Bar Scene

(This appeared in the Aug. 29, edition of the Southwest News-Herald)

So after years of waiting, Chicago will be host to Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) 90, on
Oct. 25 at the Allstate Arena. Letting UFC come to Chicago is one of the few things Gov. Blagojevich has done during these past few years that I agree with.Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighting is not an up-and-coming sport anymore. It is here. Just look at the pay-per-view numbers. MMA is producing stars who are entering other forms of entertainment, like “The Ice Man” Chuck Liddell, who guest starred on an episode of “Entourage.”

Go to any of the sports bars around the city and suburbs on a night when UFC is on. Hundreds of people, including the girls, gather at the bar to cheer on their favorite fighter.During a UFC fight not only can you see great knockouts but disturbing submissions. The excitement of watching two people fight in a variety of different styles is fun and great to watch, and you will get caught up in the action. I’m glad UFC is finally allowed to come to Chicago.

The main event is scheduled to be UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva defending the belt against number one contender Patrick Cote. This could be a classic fight. Give UFC a chance, plus you get more bang for your buck than with boxing or WWE.

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Earlier this year I took two improv classes for a company called pH (whatisph.com), and after each of the classes ended we had to perform a show. They perform shows at the Stage Left Theater in Wrigleyville.

Stage fright and speaking in front of a large group of others is something that has always bothered me a little. But I’ve heard that if you are scared of something the best thing to do is confront it head on. So I confronted it head on and I loved it!

I’m not going to lie. The day of the first show I was a little nervous until the lights went off. Then I was more nervous. When the lights were off, the only thing I was thinking was something to the effect of “what am I doing here? I’m not funny. What was I thinking?” But also throw in a four-letter word about 50 times in those phrases to get what I was really saying.
I am glad I decided to take the improv classes, because after trying to perform comedy, there is not a lot of scarier situations that I can think of that I would run into on a daily basis.

The first class was about little games to play to get your creative juices flowing and to get you used to thinking on your feet. As a reporter, I have to be able to think on my feet a lot as an everyday part of my job. Now I am not going to play the “Fred Schneider (B-52’s) what are you doing” game before I go to a press conference. For the record, the Fred
Schneider voice was one of the hardest parts of the classes.

Level two was character development. Sorry, I did have a lot of fun using some of you out there as characters in the class. For the show we had to ask questions of the audience for our characters, and I can’t type two of the characters I had to act out, but they were good suggestions.

As scared as I was before the shows, when the show started and we got that first laugh, all the stage fright went away and I just tried to have fun.

The class was a lot of fun. I recommend everybody out there who likes to go to comedy shows or likes to watch other forms of comedy to give a class a try.

I had a blast doing improv at pH and look forward to doing more there, so pay attention and you might see me headlining one day.

(Chuck Salvatore is a reporter for the Southwest News-Herald. He may be reached at (773) 476-4800, ext. 241, at chucksalvatore@hotmail.com, or at chucksalvatore.blogspot.com. Also, don’t forget to catch him every Thursday on the Linda Padgurskis show from noon to 1 p.m. and every Friday on the Out ‘N’ About show with Ron and Joe from 2 to 3 p.m., both on WJJG 1530 AM, with his bi-weekly sports reports.)