NY Senate Says 'OK' To MMA

[Slome]

NY Senate Says 'OK' To MMA

"Training for hoodlums", is it?

I respectfully disagree, Senator Larson.



It seems as though this beautiful and yet sometimes blood-covered sport we are proud to call Mixed Martial Arts is going to be made legal in the one place where just about everything in the sports world counts: New York.

Via Dana White's Twitter account, as well as a strong cause and a good reporter, the New York State Senate passed today a legislation in a narrow 32-26 floor vote.

With the legislation passed out of Senate and now in the Assembly's Ways and Means Committee, MMA fans in "The Big Apple" can sleep easy, knowing that there's still a chance of UFC, Strikeforce, and Bellator events coming to the state of New York in the future.

MMA events live from the Nassau Colliseum?

A future UFC event live and in living color from Madison Square Garden?

[ondiep]

goed nieuws!

[Tehlirian]

Madison Square Garden voor Fedor vs. Overeem

[Panicmonger]

Yes! Ik hoop echt dat dit erdoor komt, zou echt heeeeel tof zijn. Het verbod is sowieso onzin, maargoed..

[Kemal]

dat gaat de goede kant op!

[marcelt]

Madison Square Garden voor Fedor vs. Overeem

YESSSS !

[Slome]

No MMA in New York This Year


Bad though not unexpected news from New York courtesy of the New York Daily News:

ALBANY – The push to legalize ultimate fighting in New York is on the ropes.
Assembly Democrats stripped approval for the wildly popular violent sport from a budget bill that lawmakers will take up as soon as today.
Gov. Paterson sought to legalize mixed martial arts, saying fights could pull in more than $2 million in tax revenue for the cash-strapped state.
“The majority of voices who spoke about this issue in our conference were not supportive of approving it as part of the budget,” said Assemblyman Steven Englebright (D-L.I.), a fight fan.
Englebright said it’s a long shot the Assembly will revisit the issue. The state Senate has already approved the sport.

This shuts the door on what, in our opinion, was the most likely route for passage (through the state budget). All signs point to the Assembly skipping a vote on the bill the Senate already passed.

The political strife, serious budget concerns and truncated legislative calendar won again. But considering New York’s financial woes, if this was part of a horse trade in order to get real financial reform you can’t be too upset. On second thought, yes we can.
From a purely academic perspective this is a great example of just how hard it is to go from illegal to legal.