LAS VEGAS -- Weigh-ins are usually tedious, boring and slow-paced affairs with little to no action whatsoever. It's typically a slew of fighters climbing onto a stage, stepping onto a scale, posing for pictures and then exiting behind the curtains.

To say it simply: weigh-ins are boring.

Unless the weigh-in, of course, it involves a fighter being booed almost off the stage, a second individual headbutting his opponent during the staredown or another combatant sporting a derogatory T-shirt about someone he's not even fighting.

Then the weigh-ins are fun.

The official scale-tipping event was held inside a massive convention center adjacent to the MGM Grand Garden Arena and to say "a bunch of" fans showed up would be one of the grandest understatements of 2008. Thousands upon thousands of anxious UFC swag-bearing spectators filled virtually every seat in the joint, leaving about a thousand more to stand in the back of the room to watch the unfoldings of UFC 84's official weigh-ins.

At first it was the typical drudgery. Christian Wellisch (Pictures) and Shane Carwin (Pictures), the lone heavyweights of the card, started off the exercise in pounds measuring and the paint-by-numbers activity continued without a hitch until the post-scale-stepping staredown between Wilson Gouveia (Pictures) and Goran Reljic.

Both men faced off and assumed the customary boxing "en gard" stance and habitual tough guy grimaces. Then out of nowhere, Reljic head butted Gouveia. Gouveia backed away and raised his hands to ask what that was for but Reljic simply walked away as he was scolded by Zuffa's Marc Ratner. A chorus of boos and jeers littered Reljic for his unnecessary actions.

One after the other the fighters took to the stage and climbed on top of the device fat America hates the most. After Reljic, it was business as usual until former UFC light heavyweight king Tito Ortiz (Pictures) walked up onto the stage.

"The Huntington Beach Bad Boy" calmly strolled past the scale and behind his sunglasses he glared out into the crowd, nodded his head and mouthed to the fans, "Watch this!"

From there, Ortiz unzipped his jacket and exposed a startling creation straight out of a Hollywood script. No, it wasn't Quato; it was a black T-shirt with large white letters that read, "Dana is my bitch."

Naturally, the fight fans' laughter bellowed throughout the cavernous convention center, UFC's president Dana White now the brunt of a joke and laughing stock of a piece of clothing sported by a man he utterly detests. Ortiz, after throwing his current/soon-to-be-former boss in front of the fire hose, tipped the scale at a lean 205 pounds.

Opponent Lyoto Machida (Pictures), cast into the shadows thanks to the absurd and trivial cackling from White and Ortiz, weighed in at 203. Fellow light heavyweights Wanderlei Silva (Pictures), the former Pride middleweight champion, and foe Keith Jardine (Pictures) both capped off at 205 pounds as well.

Finally, Joe Rogan's eardrum-shattering screams uncomfortably segued into a well-orchestrated video montage building up the grudge match between UFC 84 headliners B.J. Penn (Pictures) and Sean Sherk (Pictures). Penn's video piece depicted him promising that he's a changed fighter, a more focused and serious man both inside and out of the cage. He promises a win and hopes to take out Sherk, the former UFC lightweight champion, in the opening round.

Sherk, on the other hand, is serious as a heart attack and admits that he's never fought somebody he hates before. The typical back-and-forth banter continued, each verbal exchange dripping with more testosterone than a rugby match.

Sherk waltzed out onto the stage and was immediately pelted with boos and angry chants.

"You suck!" one fan yelled.

Sherk smirked and stepped onto the scale, the anti-Muscle Shark sentiment growing louder and louder. One section in particular dug deep into their collective vocabulary to come up with an original chant of, "A**hole! A**hole!"

Sherk easily made the lightweight limit, weighing in at a brisk 155 pounds. The crowd hissed, jeered and shouted even more obscenities like if he was the second coming of OJ Simpson. Sherk kindly flexed his muscles to his detractors and stepped off the scale.

Then as if someone flipped a switch, "The Prodigy" deftly strolled up to the scale amid the loudest chorus of cheers of the day, a deafening antithesis to the vitriol thrown at his opponent. Penn, looking smooth and trim and surprisingly not gaunt from cutting weight, also weighted in at 155. And, typically, the crowd became berserk with glee and cheered on their hero.

Penn then guzzled down as much water as he could, signaling the end to an entertaining weigh-in for UFC 84.

The Entire Card:
B.J. Penn (Pictures) (155) vs. Sean Sherk (Pictures) (155)
Wanderlei Silva (Pictures) (205) vs. Keith Jardine (Pictures) (205)
Tito Ortiz (Pictures) (205) vs. Lyoto Machida (Pictures) (203)
Thiago Silva (Pictures) (205) vs. Antonio Mendes (203)
Wilson Gouveia (Pictures) (205) vs. Goran Reljic (205)
Ivan Salaverry (Pictures) (185) vs. Rousimar Palhares (185)
Rameau Thierry Sokoudjou (Pictures) (204) vs. Kazuhiro Nakamura (Pictures) (206)
Rich Clementi (Pictures) (155) vs. Terry Etim (Pictures) (155)
Jon Koppenhaver (Pictures) (170) vs. Yoshiyuki Yoshida (Pictures) (170)
Jason Tan (170) vs. Dong Hyun Kim (171)
Christian Wellisch (Pictures) (230) vs. Shane Carwin (Pictures) (252)