New York Governor on MMA

by Zak Woods on Jan 14, 2010 5:00 PM EST

New York Governor David Paterson spoke about his stance on legalizing MMA to Don Imus of the Fox Business Network (via Fox Fight Game)

Gov. Paterson: Well, 'ultimate fighting' has certainly been cleaned up from where it was 10-12 years ago when I was happy to vote to ban it New York state but they seem to have a different protocol now and...

Don Imus: Still pretty brutal, man.

Gov. Paterson:...well, its--um, I mean boxing itself is pretty brutal and um--but I think it, you can't--um, you cant value the fact that it is a revenue raiser over public safety. But we think that the public safety protections that they have in 'ultimate fighting' make us feel comfortable that we can go forward and try to have it in the state.

You know, I think if we can get the politicians and the mainstream media to stop calling it 'ultimate fighting' and call it by its proper name of Mixed Martial Arts a lot of this pseudo-controversy stuff will end. Basically, 'ultimate fighting' sounds uncouth when compared to mixed martial arts and that subtle difference can help us win over some soccer moms.

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Things are looking better & better for MMA in the Empire State. Makes me wish I still lived on the east coast. UFC in MSG’d be fantastic.

Oh, and the Govenor does looks like that one guy from SNL when he does Obama. Thankfully Imus isn’t pictured on account of he looks like that cowboy zombie from House 2.

Pee-pee money is not an employment history.

by finkrod on Jan 14, 2010 5:43 PM EST reply actions

People will stop calling it Ultimate Fighting when Dana starts saying mixed martial arts will be the biggest sport in the world in 10 years instead of the UFC will be the biggest sport in the world in 10 years. That little speech he gave garnered a lot of press.
Statements like that make people like casual fans of the sport think that the UFC is the sport not a promotion.

It also doesn’t help that Yahoo sports one of the bigger sources for mixed martial arts news for a lot of fans calls their MMA section UFC.

Bottom line people in this country will stop calling it Ultimate Fighting when another promotion gains some sort of main stream success and is seen on a similar level to the UFC. Then maybe MMA will be more of a common term.

I do like the term Ultimate Fighting better than what Larry King referred to it on his show when he called it Ultimate Boxing…lol.

by scrambledeggs on Jan 14, 2010 6:38 PM EST reply actions

I do like the term Ultimate Fighting better than what Larry King referred to it on his show when he called it Ultimate Boxing…lol.

oh Larry….

watchkalibrun.com

by Zak Woods on Jan 14, 2010 7:00 PM EST up reply actions

if the united states military let's the ufc have fight nights on certain bases

i think not only the state of n.y should legalize it, but every other state which it is not legal. anybody got a list of states? one more is massachussets.

i'm all about covering the spread and moneylines. i was building a house, i don't deserve this, deserves have nothing to do with it. bang. "unforgiven"

by wolfmanshowlforever on Jan 14, 2010 7:22 PM EST reply actions

Massachusetts passed legislation for it late last year.

Off the top of my head I think there are 43 states that regulate MMA

Part of it is that some states don’t have athletic commissions or another form of regulatory body to oversee the sport. So, MMA is legal in Alabama but regulated.

I think NY is the last state where MMA is illegal in the States and Ontario is the big province in Canada

watchkalibrun.com

by Zak Woods on Jan 14, 2010 7:32 PM EST up reply actions

thanks for the info

i'm all about covering the spread and moneylines. i was building a house, i don't deserve this, deserves have nothing to do with it. bang. "unforgiven"

by wolfmanshowlforever on Jan 14, 2010 7:37 PM EST up reply actions