By Alan Snel
LVSportsBiz.com
Most days, 27-year-old Courtney Gagne is a mild-mannered pre-school teacher living in the southwest Las Vegas valley after moving from Cocoa Beach, Florida.
But this week, Gagne took time off and turned into a raging UFC superfan, screaming as loud as she can to get the attention of UFC bantamweight Holly Holm Wednesday afternoon at a UFC workout event inside MGM Grand hotel-casino that allowed hundreds of MMA fight fans to get a close look at their favorite UFC fighters. Here’s Holm doing a workout with a trainer today.
“Holly, we love you! Can we get a picture? Picture! Picture! Picture! I don’t care if I make a fool of myself,” Gagne said to fans jammed together outside the barrier keeping fan from fighter.
Remarkably and to the memorable delight of Gagne, Holm — a powerful fighter who battles bantamweight champ Amanda Nunes in UFC 239 at T-Mobile Arena Saturday night — strolled over to the teacher to share some photos.
Here’s Gagne after the Holm photo opps.
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Being a UFC fan and a Holm superfan meant making an economic decision for Gagne.
She weighed spending $300 to attend UFC 239 Saturday and watch Holm and Nunes go at it in the octagon cage or paying $324 for a room this week at the Downtown Grand hotel and hitting free UFC International Week fan events like Wednesday’s Holm workout at MGM Grand. Other free fan events include an Independence Day UFC concert at the Fremont Street Experience in downtown Thursday and Friday’s weigh-in/press conference at T-Mobile Arena and the UFC Fan Experience at the Downtown Las Vegas Events Center. Here’s the UFC fan event schedule this week.
Gagne chose the downtown Las Vegas hotel room and the free events during the week and decided against attending the actual UFC 239 fight show at T-Mobile Arena Saturday. She explained her decision:
Gagne has no regrets. She met Holm and she was as happy as watching UFC 239 in person.
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UFC fan Johnny Zimmerman is a 50-year-old retired bearded woodworker who roots for Holm’s Saturday opponent, the powerful champion, Nunes. He was wearing a bright red ballcap with large white UFC lettering and had a ringside position for the playful workouts Wednesday.
Zimmerman explained his UFC 239 watch strategy of either getting into T-Mobile Arena or viewing UFC 239 on the big screen at either El Cortez downtown hotel-casino (owned by the family of UFC Chief Operating Officer Lawrence Epstein) or at the Red Rock Resort hotel-casino (owned by the former UFC owners, the Fertitta brothers.)
“I have a buddy who will try and get me into T-Mobile Arena. Or I’ll watch it at El Cortez or Red Rock. It will be either $5 or $10 at El Cortez to watch it or $20 at Red Rock (Resort),” Zimmerman said.
He, like Gagne the Holm ultra fan, plans to attend as many free UFC fan events as possible. It’s an economic way to connect to UFC fighters without paying the cost of attending the UFC 239 fight show.
“I think everything is free except for the fight,” Zimmerman said.
He also got the chance to see light heavyweight Jon Jones chat at the MGM Grand. Jones faces Thiago Santos at UFC 239 Saturday.
Look for more LVSportsBiz.com coverage of UFC 239 during this week.
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