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California politics & MMA
By Zach Arnold | March 4, 2006
By Zach Arnold
California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger did not attend the Gracie Fighting Championships show on Friday night in Columbus, Ohio at the Nationwide Arena. He took a lot of heat for his image being used on promotional posters for the event. Here is some of the criticism that Schwarzenegger has been dealing with.
Today, Jordan Robertson of the Associated Press has an article on the American newswires about the upcoming March 10th show in San Jose (main event is Frank Shamrock vs. Cesar Gracie).
The opening paragraph is enough to make anyone with knowledge of MMA cringe:
Mixed martial arts cage fighting debuted in the United States in the early 1990s, drawing huge pay-per-view audiences as a renegade blood sport with few rules and the tantalizing prospect of gory injuries, even death, in every match.
In Robertson’s article, he talks about MMA shows already taking place (the “underground” variety) in California before the state decided to legalize and regulate the industry. What he doesn’t mention is that many of the MMA shows that have taken place in California have happened on Indian reservations/land and some of these shows are actually run by legitimate promotions (such as WEC).
One of the positives about Robertson’s article is his quoting of Hugo Spindola, the general counsel of New York’s state athletic commission. Here’s the money quote:
“We’re not convinced yet of this sport’s safety,” he said. “Until you can really prove these tactics don’t have long-term effects or aren’t more dangerous than existing sports, I don’t really know how much further it can go in New York.”
Robertson goes on to talk about one person dying in an MMA bout (not in the US, however) and mentions that supporters of MMA claim boxing has more deaths. Well, how about doing some research on this? It took me under 10 seconds to type in “boxing deaths” on a search engine and find an incredible, comprehensive list of all the deaths ever in boxing.
Why are Spindola’s statements not challenged in the article? His statements are incredulous on various levels.
- Boxing makes the New York athletic commission a lot of money, especially shows at Madison Square Garden.
- WWE continues to be licensed to run shows in New York (the promotion recently ran the Nassau Coliseum in Uniondale, New York). And the mortality rate of wrestlers under the age of 50 in the pro-wrestling industry certainly shows that the pro-wrestling industry as a whole is a business where workers suffer from long-term negative health effects.
Let’s just say that the AP article is not exactly writing that anyone armed with facts about the fight game can read without getting heavily frustrated. However, I expect a lot more of this type of writing in the American press in 2006 as the MMA industry continues to grow.
Topics: All Topics, MMA, Zach Arnold | 1 Comment » | Permalink | Trackback |
Just an update for you… The Governator did appear in Columbus on Saturday. All martial arts events taking place at the Nationwide Arena including BJJ were stopped around 4pm while Arnold came and greeted the crowd, and some handicapped kids did some martial arts demonstration for him…