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A birthplace for MMA’s Unified Rules may no longer be so welcoming
By Zach Arnold | February 13, 2009
We’re talking about Quebec, of course. For MMA old-timers, you recognize historically where the Quebec Boxing Commission and the New Jersey State Athletic Commission stand in terms of helping the Unified Rules get into place for what we see today in MMA competition.
There are multiple reports (start by reading this) that the QBC is interested in changing the Unified Rules of MMA because of what happened last week at a StrikeBox show. If you don’t know the story by now regarding a riot that took place at the StrikeBox show, read Michael David Smith’s article and view the embedded YouTube clip that comes along with it. With the QBC’s new change-of-heart regarding the Unified Rules, it puts UFC’s upcoming April show in jeopardy. That event is headlined by Anderson Silva. Is the show heading to Las Vegas now?
Bad promoters can kill MMA, which was a point that I tried to fervently make during the PRIDE yakuza scandal. Certainly, PRIDE was a money-machine when they had Fuji TV’s support, and the StrikeBox event could never come close to drawing the same business that most PRIDE Bushido shows drew. Nonetheless, the same principle holds in tact — when towns or regions get burned by controversial promoters or promotional tactics, you end up with the situation we have now. For more discussion on StrikeBox, Fightlinker has a breakdown for you.
There is unbelievable irony in this story. Ontario province, with Ken Hayashi heavily pushing MMA to stay out of his territory due to The Criminal Code, is now reconsidering its stance on MMA legalization. Once that happens, the floodgates will open for cities like Toronto and Hamilton. Quebec, which helped the Unified Rules take hold through North America, is reportedly now starting to restrict its participation in the current MMA scene by changing the goalposts and modifying the rules.
Keep your eyes open to Corus Sports and La Presse, which is based out of Montreal.
Topics: Canada, Media, MMA, Zach Arnold | 18 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Scott White of TKOXtreme.com said:
It’s curious — I know that boxing has made somewhat of a comeback in Montreal with Herman Ngodjou but he’s out for a year and basically what’s left is Sebastian Demers, who is fighting at the Montreal Casino on March 7th. I’m not sure why the QBC is so quick to pull the trigger here, other than politics. It happens — remember what happened to Larry Hazzard in New Jersey?
Patry is not the cleanest guy in the business but to put that on him is far fetched. There’s a new head to the QAC and since he’s been in power there’s been a 5 minutes round in boxing, they went back and forth on the Strikebox rules to eventually refuse the rules 2 weeks prior the event and allowing the event to continue on a gentlemen handshake and they just found out that their’s own rules prohibits elbow and knee.
And Quebec never legalize mma not because they liked mma but because they didn’t want other events running on Kannawake’s indian reserve.
And probably Ottawa as well. Given it’s proximity to Quebec, that might pressure Quebec to relent.
Toronto, Hamilton, Ottawa, London…these are all massive MMA towns. You could hold a UFC basically anywhere in Ontario and draw 20,000 fans with a half-decent main event.
My country is OBSESSED with hockey, which is pretty much common knowledge. What might not be commonly known is that kids as young as five start playing, and it’s not long before they’re engaged in bare-fist, tooth-shattering brawls on the ice, which is 100% legal in hockey (worst case scenario you end up with a 5-minute penalty).
Emergency rooms across the country treat tens of thousands of hockey-related injuries each year – stitches, broken bones, concussions, and in some cases, much more severe injuries.
In a recent edition of The Metro (a free Toronto daily paper) there was a question posed to readers: Should fighting be banned from hockey? (bare-fist, no holds barred fighting, BTW)
People writing in – some even PARENTS of young kids – were claiming that it was an integral part of the game, and the sport would suffer without it.
This is the kind of mind-blowing insanity that surrounds Canada’s favorite sport.
But propose a regulated MMA contest, and all of a sudden parents, politicians and sports writers are losing their effing minds.
Hypocrisy at it’s best.
Yep, don’t put this at Patry’s feet … it’s been the Quebec commission from start to finish that’s fucked everything up.
My biggest problem with this is the way it happen. If they allowed every registred event to go forward with the unified rules and block upcoming event not registred with the commission, it would at least be reasonable. But to screw with upcoming events, that’s Quebec bureaucracy at it’s worst. The Quebec governement doesn’t respect business.
Ultimo Santa is Canadian. It all makes sense now. lol!!
All kidding aside, this commission seems stupid.
haha 45 Huddle
I’m actually not a *proud* Canadian…the only thing I’m happy about is that I have a job, and our economy is like 10% less screwed that the States right now.
If/when things pick up south of the border I’d love to move somewhere warmer; preferably somewhere that $380k gets you more than a townhouse.
But I digress…
If Canadians are insane, Quebecers are REALLY insane (not the individuals, but the gov’t). They have a very strange way of looking at things, and think that their province should be it’s own country.
380 k gets you more than a town house? ha ha Keep going south, try Mexico. (full discloser, I live in CA, land of the over priced everything).
There’s a lot of places the UFC can hold a show at and sell out. If he has to reschedule UFC 97 because of this stunt, I can easily see Dana saying “You know what, F&*% Quebec, we’re never doing a show there again.”
Considering how fast the Montreal show sold out, I don’t know why the QBC would risk alienating the UFC.
I’ve been to both Toronto and Quebec. Quebec felt like a foreign country. Toronto (while technically it is), did not. It just felt like a really clean and over polite American City.
Quebec was kind of shady actually. At least that was the vibe I got from it.
45 Huddle, that’s exactly how I see those two cities.
Aside from loose women and the most rockin’ strip clubs on the planet, there isn’t much happening in Montreal. If you’re a young single guy it’s definitely the place to go party…not the best place to live (for a variety of reasons that I won’t go into here).
Toronto is definitely just like a cleaner US city – reminds me of Chicago. I work in Toronto’s business district and I rarely see the ‘dark side’ of the city, but there are definitely some shady parts here as well.
California, I know, is ridiculous with housing prices. Some of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been are in CA (I would move to the Bay Area in a heartbeat), but I want more bang for my buck when buying a house…
In Phoenix, $380k gets you about 4000 sq ft, and it’s going to be a balmy 70 degrees on Sunday. It’s a very nice city, and it’s only a 5 hour drive to Vegas (good for catching UFC shows if nothing else) and a 4 hour drive to LA.
Hm, my preferences are entirely flipped between Toronto and Montreal. Toronto is an utterly soulless combination of the worst of Chicago and some other useless midwestern or southern city (this from a vet of Chicago). Talk about a waste.
Icemuncher – you’re selling me on Phoenix…in the GTA (Greater Toronto Area) where I live, a 4000 sq ft house would run you – conservatively – $850k Canadian. In a more prime location with a larger yard, 1.5M-2M, easy.
Last week the snow outside my house was 6 ft high, and the wind was so cold I was wearing thermal socks and two pairs of gloves…and was still frozen.
I didn’t realize it was such a close drive to Vegas! I would be hitting several UFC events a year for sure.
Well, in the next couple years we might be neighbors.
Toronto has a ton of museums, bars, clubs, stores, sites…it’s just not for me. I’m a suburbanite. Montreal is kick-@$$ for partying, but I would not live there (even though I speak French – a benefit of being educated north of the border).
I just wish we’d get some goddamned live MMA here. We have SO MANY muay thai, BJJ, boxing and MMA schools its ridiculous. EVERYONE loves the sport here, and it’s just a shame that it’s still illegal.
Zach,
To say the boxing has made a comeback of sorts in Quebec is not entirely true. The sport has never left, Quebecois’ have always loved boxing and will continually support it. In my knowledge, that fascination with the sport really has never left.
Talking about moving to places, don’t move to New Jersey, except maybe south Jersey. Newark, Jersey City, North Bergen, Trenton, Camden, etc. are absolute SHITHOLES. No offense to those who live in those places, but they are awful. North Bergen might be the worst of them. I live in Scranton, Pa and it’s better, but it’s an over-all depressed area. But you wouldn’t know that considering that many people are proud that “The Office” takes place in Scranton. Even though it’s filmed in LA (yes, because LA and Scranton are SSSSSOOOOOOO similar!) but whatever.
But I must say about about that Strikebox event, at least the promoter decided to do what most MMA “fans” want to see, which is stand-up rules with standing submissions and takedowns but no ground work, just like Shootboxing. Most MMA fans just want to see kickboxing with limited submission work and takedowns and no ground work, so now you got it…..until the fans threw beer cans in the ring. Personally I love ground work, but most MMA fans don’t want that unless there is a submission immediately when things hit the ground.
Herman Ngodjou and Demers are not the biggest boxing draws in Quebec. Lucian Bute is the biggest and fighters like Pascal, Diaconu, Alcine can also do good business.
This is just a guess but I don’t think that the QBC is motivated to destroy MMA in favor of boxing. Like it was pointed out in a previous post, boxing is very popular in Quebec and MMA is just another attraction.
This just sounds like a politician who likes to make headlines. Montreal and especially Toronto could be HUGE MMA markets, this is some very short sighted thinking.