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Another victory for MMA
By Zach Arnold | March 30, 2006
Special to Fight Opinion
The explosion of MMA continues to grow to broader areas by the day. The revolution of the combat sport has now blasted its way into the fringe market of Nova Scotia and is looking to strike briskly over the rest of the Maritimes (Prince Edward Island and New Brunswick). With the April 29th Extreme Cage Combat card being held at the Halifax Forum, the building is locked into a contact with promoter Peter Martell. However, there was great uncertainty amongst the promoters about any possible future events in the city. Councilor Bob Harvey set forth a motion to ban the fight genre from the myriad of fight fanatics in the Metro area. The Halifax Regional Municipality voted in favor for Peter Martell and Rob Walker, with a one-sided tally vote of 19-3 against the proposed ban.
When contacted by phone, promoter Peter Martell gave his reaction to his enormous triumph.
“We are happy with it. We have spent a lot of time to get the event cleared with the Provincial Government and they threw us another hurdle. We are pleased that things went our way.â€
Both promoters have very distinct martial-art backgrounds. While Martell was primarily a Brazilian Ju-Jitsu practitioner, he also dabbled a bit into Tae-Won-Do and Boxing. He then met his eventual business partner, learning the proficient skill of Muay Thai. Walker, a former world Muay Thai champion, and partner Martell opened up a training centre for future fighters of various disciplines. Once they saw that their fighters were being booked on Quebec shows, they thought they might as well create the first MMA promotion in the Atlantic Canada region so that the local grapplers could apply their trade in their area.
The Nova Scotia Boxing Authority is regulating the event under strict guidelines. No elbows to the face or in the back of the head or spine. While the boxing commission barely has any knowledge of the combat sport, it’s the only sanctioning body that could approve it at this time.
“Maybe in five or ten years time, instead of it being called the Boxing Authority it will be called the Combat Sports Authority.†stated Martell.
The mainstream media likes to destroy the credibility of MMA by using such terms as “human cockfighting†to describe it. Martell is surprised at this rhetoric, since there is a major influx of fight-related programming on television.
“They need angles to sell their newspapers to the readers,” Martell exclaimed.
Jason Macdonald (12-7-0), with a recent win over UFC fighter Joe Doerksen, goes up against a gritty veteran in Gideon Ray (13-3-1) in the main event of the initial show on April 29th. He lost his last two bouts in UFC, but he is on a four-fight winning-streak with wins over Jerry Spiegel, Brendan Seguin, Chris Fontaire, and Trevor Garett. This should be a highly-contested battle between two very fundamentally sound submission specialists, and they both can throw the leather as well. There will be another eleven matches on this packed card. This is another step forward for MMA to achieve global recognition.
Topics: All Topics, Canada, Media, MMA | 4 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Nice! Chalk one up for the good guys
I hope this case will work as a precedent for other MMA promoters.
I bellieve this trend will continue one territory at a time
I’ll be there……By the way, is there a school for learning MMA in the Halifax area? Would love to start…..