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Ontario indicating an embrace of MMA regulation in the future
By Zach Arnold | December 23, 2009
Ken Hayashi aggravated the MMA community for years and years. Where is he now?
CTV Toronto: Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty leaves door open to Ultimate Fighting
The excitement from those comments is being felt by everyone in the Ontario MMA community:
“There’s a tremendous amount of interest [in the Ontario market], and we would come up there at [the Premier’s] beck and call, whatever timing, and be more than happy to talk about the sport of mixed martial arts.” said Marc Ratner, who left his post as head of the Nevada State Athletic Commission three years ago to join UFC, of which he is vice-president of regulatory and government affairs.
The Toronto Star reports that UFC is hiring some big lobbyists:
The Star revealed last month that UFC, one of the world’s fastest growing sports properties, hired Liberal lawyer Noble Chummar as a registered lobbyist.
Also advising the privately owned UFC is former Ontario premier David Peterson, a political mentor to McGuinty.
Flashback: Transcript of Marc Ratner interview on HDNet
Topics: Canada, Media, MMA, UFC, Zach Arnold | 5 Comments » | Permalink | Trackback |
Hopefully it will be legalized soon. There’s a big hunger up there with people training at Toronto BJJ, Revolution and other gyms
Talked to a friend about this. And I saw the video on the siet.
The news station DID NOT paint MMA in a good light. The station was very ignorant. They keep referring to it as “Ultimate Fighting”. One of the guys they interviewed in that bar looked and speaked in a non-hetero manner. Just watch two drunk guys fight in a bar instead.
However my friend said the worst part of it was that the news station sent it back to the female (Pauline) and she said “Speaking of Ultimate Fighting” they brought up the Harold Howard story of how he crashed his truck into a casino and was being tracked down for murder or something. The reporter said “he was a popular Ultimate Fighting fighter during the UFC tours.” Basically trying to paint the UFC as some circus and associate this idiot with the sport.
i was thinking of making the same comments about the station, CTV which is one of the major channels in Canada
i think the reason why they interviewed that person was just to get a “mixed” reaction. clearly that guy didn’t know what he was talking about.
and i agree, i found it quite disturbing that they kept on referring to the sport as “ultimate fighting”
I also wonder what Ken Hayashi is doing. He’s been the stumbling block all along and now it seems others are working to make it happen.
Anybody have any new Ken H thoughts on the matter?
Finally. Noble Chummar is a well known lobbyist in Ontario and his senior David Peterson was the premier. They know what they are doing. Dana White knows whats going on. Peterson and Chummar are hired by loads of big companies to make things happen. They charge big bucks for a reason.