Toronto UFC 129 Bodog Trip Report

Recently I went to UFC 129 in Toronto and had an epic weekend thanks to Riyaz and Bodog. As an affiliate, if you are ever asked to go to a Bodog event it should be an easy decision. Bodog does not disappoint.

Ritz Carlton Hotel in Toronto

We stayed in the ultra-classy Ritz Carlton that opened 2 months ago in Toronto.  They upgraded our rooms to a corner suite with 2 bathrooms (one had a tv in the mirror), a living room and a bedroom. We also had free room service breakfast, which were some of the best breakfasts I have ever had. The location was in the middle of downtown Toronto and they had an awesome indoor pool and hot tub…basically you couldn’t ask for more from a hotel.

On Thursday I met up with Riyaz and we went out with a couple other affiliates Graham, John, Nick and a couple of their buddies. They showed us some cool bars including one with $3 dollar drinks before 12.  So at 11:59  someone ended up ordering about 10 of them and we had a mountain of drinks for the rest of the night.

On Friday night they had welcome drinks  & food at the Ritz Carlton hotel lounge. They gave us a duffel bag with bodog gear including a jacket, hockey jersey and a hat. It was a good time but everyone was pretty tired from the night before so we took it pretty easy.

On Saturday we had a limo ride to the UFC Fan Expo. They had a lot of booths with fighters signing gear although to get a signature you had to wait in crazy lines. The line for Silva was probably about 2 hours long…and he was only signing for an hour so don’t know how that would worked out. Tess and I ended up staying for about an hour and we left and walked around Toronto before the fight which was about 5 hours later.

View from the Bodog Suite @ UFC 129

Bodog had their own suite at Roger’s Stadium where UFC 129 was held. They had free food and a bartender who served complementary drinks. It was an awesome time and it seemed like every Canadian had GSP penciled in as the winner which he did. However, the fight before between José Aldo vs. Mark Hominick was my favorite fight. Aldo was really owning Hominick (from Canada as well)  for 4 rounds and then in the 5th round Hominick turned the match on it’s head and started to dominate. It was too late for him to win the fight but the crowd was going nuts as Hominick had a huge swelled up hematoma on his forehead after being hit by Aldo but that didn’t stop him from wailing on Aldo for a round. Riyaz mentioned that it wasn’t fair at that point because it was 2 vs. 1.

CN Tower

The trip was awesome. I had a great time and will definitely visit Toronto again. Thanks to Riyaz who in my opinion is one of the best affiliate managers in the industry. Also thanks to Oren & Jessica from Bodog who helped us through the trip.

If you aren’t already promoting bodog then definitely check them out the bodog affiliate program.