Fronted by Luke Thomas and hoping the author of this post updates his work when he gets a chance.

Opinions and observations now added; click through to view

It's a glorious, sunny day outside as I look north up the strip from my 29th floor room in the Mandalay Bay. My laptop reports the outside temperature as 34 Celsius - a touch warmer than the 16 Celsius that I'd be enduring back home in Scotland.

In just two hours, I'll be in down in the events centre taking photos for ESPN at the pre-fight press conference for UFC 86.

Attendees are Dana White, Quinton Jackson, Forrest Griffin, Patrick Cote, Josh Koscheck, Ricardo Almeida, Chris Lytle, Joe Stephenson and Tyson Griffin. There'll probably be a few other fighters from the card milling around in the room even if they're not on the roster for interviews.

Now as a photographer, I'm no journalist - but I'll do my best to write up any interesting comments or anecdotes from my viewpoint once the conference has wrapped.

Oh, and if there's any BE readers in the area, be sure to drop me a line.

UPDATE:

So the press conference wrapped about just over an hour ago but I got stuck behind waiting to get portraits of all the fighters... a bit like "pick a number and get in line" when there's so many journalists looking for one-on-one interviews.

Anyways. Quinton was his usual comedic self and he took a few light verbal jabs at Forrest. Jackson stated that he'd seen the Griffin v Bonnar fight whilst still with Pride and had picked Bonnar as the winner... he muffled this jibe a little by stating he's no referee and that was just his opinion. Overall Jackson was very relaxed, affable and in good spirits.

By contrast, Forrest was a man of few words as ever. He did reference Quinton's remarks about his punching power, saying "I used to fight taekwondo, and you got penalised for hitting to hard... but I've been working on it.". Forrest looked a lot trimmer than I remember him being in Belfast during '72... but that could be a trick of the mind.

Before the presser they maintained a good distance from each other as they waited to go up on the podium, not even making eye contact. It was all smiles and handshakes between the two comedians during the face-off but there's no doubting that, come Saturday night, these two will go at it hammer and tongs; although the latest series of TUF was without much in the way of "fireworks" between these coaches there'll be bombs dropped in the Octagon.

Patrick Cote and Ricardo Almeida had nothing bad to say about each other, being very respectful at all times. Each praised the others skills and past performances. It's anyone's guess as to what will motivate these guys to a win but, as a father of two children, I'll go out on a limb and say that Almeida's desire to prove himself to his autistic son will provide an inner fuel that Cote might not have a match for.

Chris Lytle proved that he's not taking his fight with Josh Koscheck lightly; "Usually when they call me up asking me to fight, I say 'I'll do it!" even before they tell me who it is... I jump in at the first second. This time, when they said it was Josh, it took me about three seconds before I agreed."

Lytle obviously has that fighter's heart of being willing to go up against anyone at anytime - but he lit out of the press conference at lightning speed once the face-offs had been staged. He disappeared so fast that he could have a profitable sideline as a magic act here at the Mandalay. I don't think anyone got to put one-on-one questions to him; I can only guess that he wanted to get straight back to the business of pre-fight training.

Koscheck, by contrast, stuck around for every interview opportunity going... and there were a lot of folk waiting to do so. Nothing that he said during the open forum part of the press conference stuck in my mind so apologies that I can't share anything.

Lastly, Dana White stuck it out the longest. I overheard a few snippets of interviews.

"Look, if you have $800 million in funding and do it right, you should be around for a long, long time." - referencing the demise of the IFL through lack of business acumen.

"I guarantee you; in eight years time, this sport will be bigger than the fucking NFL. It transcends all boundaries." - grand visions for the sport of MMA

'Eighty-five percent of our guys went to college; I wouldn't dream of telling them how to act, what to say - they all have their own unique story" - referencing both Pride FC's penchant for 'packaging' fighters (Quinton as a hobo) and also the perennial boxing story of 'grew up in a rough neigborhood, without boxing I'd be dead or in jail' (Dana's words)

The one dissapointment was that Joe Stevenson and Gleison Tibau were trimmed from appearing at the eleventh hour; the reason given was that the UFC wanted to keep the primary focus on the three main fights. Taken in conjunction with the 'Countdown to  86' that aired recently, that makes sense - but I'm sure there were a few folk looking to talk to Joe about his comeback trail following UFC 80.

Well, that's all folks. The weather outside is now 42 Celsius and, as soon as I'm done filing all my shots I'm going to head out and soak up some of it. Pity the WiFi in my room is so S L O W.

See you at the weigh-in's tomorrow.