Boston City Council passes ordinance to ban minors from MMA events

Four days after UFC Fight Night 26, the Boston city council has banned minors from attending MMA events.

A rep from the Boston city clerk’s office confirmed to MMAjunkie.com (www.mmajunkie.com) that the council today passed a resolution to keep minors out of events such as the UFC’s, though a vote tally of the 13-member council was not available.

Unless accompanied by an adult, fans younger than 16 are banned from attending MMA shows.

Although unsuccessful in keeping the UFC out of Boston in its second trip to the city, the move is a small victory for city council president Steve Murphy, who lobbied against the industry-leading promotion in the buildup to this past Saturday’s event at Boston’s TD Garden.

The attacks prompted a fiery response from UFC President Dana White, who called the politician a “complete hypocrite and a total jackass.”

White initially said the ban, as well as several other snafus in the weeks and months prior to UFC Fight Night 26, might keep the promotion from returning to Boston. But after the event, which produced exciting fights and strong ratings, he vowed to return.

The resolution, which is posted on the city council’s website, calls MMA an “extremely violent form of entertainment” and cites pro and amateur fighters with neo-Nazi tattoos or clothing, as well as fighters who’ve joked about rape and used homophobic language.

The Boston City Council has requested that a copy of the resolution be provided to the Boston Police Department and TD Garden management.

A request for comment from the UFC was not immediately returned.

In several interviews, White attributed the difficulties in promoting a show in Boston to a long-running fight with a Las Vegas-based culinary union that, he said, was after a $10 million windfall brought by unionizing Station Casinos, which is owned by UFC executives Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta.

Many of the claims contained in the ordinance were trumpeted by activists who lodged a complaint with the Massachusetts State Athletic Commission in an effort to deny UFC Fight Night 26 headliner Chael Sonnen a license to compete.

Increasingly, though, White has taken the stance that resistance in all its forms by the culinary union is actually helping the UFC’s cause.

“I love when these guys come out and do stuff like this,” he said following UFC Fight Night 26. “My media schedule got even bigger. And it didn’t just last one day; it lasted four days. They come in and they do stuff like this and it just makes everything bigger. … Everybody covered this fight because of what commissioner knucklehead was doing.

“Everybody that I came into contact with here in Boston had heard about what was going on. So, I would just like to thank all my friends at the union for really helping us with the PR push this week. It was a huge success and I can’t thank you all enough.”

For complete coverage of UFC Fight Night 26, stay tuned to the UFC Events section of the site.

(Pictured: Dana White)