My Take Radio

The bat­tle to sanc­tion MMA in NY state took a turn in the right direc­tion when the NYS bud­get was passed with the pro­vi­sion of MMA being sanc­tioned. If all the politi­cians agree with the bud­get and don’t cut MMA out we can see MMA approval signed sealed by 4/1. Now of course with the sanc­tion­ing of MMA in NY there will be NYS ath­letic com­mis­sion guide­lines that will need to be estab­lished as well as cer­tain safe­guards that will need to be put in place but these are things that can move rather quickly. With MMA esti­mated to gen­er­ate 1.37 mil­lion in recur­ring rev­enue it’s a no brainer for the gov­ern­ment to want to get a piece. Gov­er­nor Pat­ter­son expects NY to reg­u­late MMA before 2010 is over.

One thing to note is that the Depart­ment of State must approve the Senate’s pro­posed bud­get. Given how cash strapped NY State is I think it will be not be rejected.

What do my fel­low MMA fans and New York­ers think of MMA in the big apple?

With all the talk of the Olympics, many peo­ple have been debat­ing at length about the inclu­sion of MMA in the Olympic games. Many detrac­tors feel that the “bar­baric” nature of the sport would be inap­pro­pri­ate for the squeaky clean games. As a fan, I feel that this argu­ment is really poorly researched and con­tin­ues to enforce the fact that peo­ple still need to learn about the sport. For those detrac­tors, I present the fol­low­ing cour­tesy of Wikipedia:

Mixed mar­tial arts (MMA) is a full con­tact com­bat sport that allows a wide vari­ety of fight­ing tech­niques, from a mix­ture of mar­tial arts tra­di­tions and non-traditions, to be used in com­pe­ti­tions. The rules allow the use of strik­ing and grap­pling tech­niques, both while stand­ing and on the ground. Such com­pe­ti­tions allow mar­tial artists of dif­fer­ent back­grounds to compete.

As described above, MMA is a mix­ture of a wide vari­ety of fight­ing tech­niques such as Wrestling, Judo, Taek­wondo and Box­ing ‚which are all Olympic sports. Dis­ci­plines alreadyrec­og­nized by the Inter­na­tional  Olympic Com­mit­tee — Karate and Wushu, are also prac­ticed by some MMA fight­ers. The Olympics preach broth­er­hood and equal­ity among it’s ath­letes and MMA shares a sim­i­lar broth­er­hood and desire to rep­re­sent one’s coun­try. I feel that the global appeal as well as the diverse mix of ath­letes would allow most, if not all, coun­tries to be represented.

The IOC will need to make some adjust­ments to keep the blood­shed to a min­i­mum, but with the proper safe­guards I feel MMA would do well and allow fight­ers another avenue to grow the sport on a global scale. In research­ing the Olympics, I learned that Pankra­tion at one point  was an Olympic event. Pankra­tion was the first form of MMA and was a viable Olympic sport.

I am sure many peo­ple will agree with my rec­om­men­da­tion, just as I am sure oth­ers will dis­agree, but in the end it would be quite a sight to see. Imag­ine GSP  as Wel­ter­weight Cham­pion and Olympic Gold Medal­ist. Dana White I am sure would love to that become a real­ity. We can only hope as fans that when the Olympics visit Rio in 2016, they request the inclu­sion of Vale Tudo or BJJ into the Olympic games.

Would you like to see MMA in the Olympics? Share your thoughts below: