Mixed Martial Arts KO’d Again in New York

Another year and once again mixed martial arts fans in New York will have to wait for the sport to arrive at Madison Square Garden… or anywhere else in the state for that matter.

The New York Daily News is reporting that the New York Assembly Democratic conference, behind closed doors, discussed and denied bringing MMA sanctioning to the floor for a vote this year. Speaker Sheldon Silver determined that the votes weren’t there for a bill to pass, according to the report, so it will not go to the floor for a vote.

“It will not come to the floor this year,” Silver told the Daily News. The conference, he said, “was pretty evenly divided.”

He went on to say that he felt MMA legislation in New York was evolving and that it could pass within the next couple of years, but currently felt support was about a “50-50 proposition.”

UFC president Dana White believed years ago that MMA sanctioning was on the cusp of passage in New York, but year after year it gets stalled out along the way.

It isn’t just a matter of infighting among politicians of New York over mixed martial arts, according to White. In his view, the UFC’s problems in helping get sanctioning for the sport passed in the Empire State has nothing to do with the sport; it has to do with unions… one in particular.

“In a nutshell, my partners, the Fertittas, own a company called Station Casinos. It’s the fourth largest gaming company in the country,” White explained recently as a guest on the Mark Levin Show. “They’re non-union. So the union, the Culinary Union in Las Vegas, has been using their pull in New York to keep us out of there.

“It really has nothing to do with mixed martial arts. It has to do with culinary business in Vegas.”

Regardless of who, why, when, where, or what, the simple fact is mixed martial arts in New York is once again non-existent, at least for another year.

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