New York City opens up to allow Professional Mixed Martial Arts events to take place

New York has cleared the way to promote more athletic events in the city including the man to man professional mixed martial arts events. However, there are still rules and reservations before the fighters' clash.

According to WTOP, the Assembly of New York voted to legalize the martial arts fight to take place in their state arenas this year. The vote was 113 - 25 and allowed the combat sport to take place after years of prohibiting it. Governor Andrew Cuomo has supported the legalization of wrestling, judo, and kickboxing and the State Senate already passed the identical measure to it. New York is known to be the last state to ban the sport saying that it is too violent and even comparing it to football and boxing. Nonetheless, the MMA law will be regulated by State Athletic Commission.

Yahoo reported that, Assemblyman Charles Baron sees that the sport is barbaric and should be banned and it goes far out to entertainment. More, provisions for the sport was made to reduce opposition which includes raising the insurance for fighter injuries from $50,000 to $1 million for life threatening brain-damage injuries. Advocates also said that the sport has evolved far more from its initial days with more rules to protect fighters. Lead Assemblyman Joseph Morelle said that "what we seek to do is essentially take the sport out of the shadows in New York."

MMA sport is known to take inside a cage where a referee acts as the arbitrator of the fight. The fight sums up whenever a fighter gets knocked out or through the judges' decision. According to ABC News, the Assembly felt that the sport is too violent, thus, keeping it banned thru the state. However, in 2007, Democrat-controlled chamber approved it but balked while Republican-controlled Senate has fought to legalize it for seven years straight.

Ultimate Fighting Championship, sport's largest U.S. promoter, has its eyes seeing a major fight to be conducted in Madison Square Garden late this year and predicts that there will be other professional bouts in the cities of Brooklyn, Buffalo and other smaller ones. 

Tags

New York City, mixed martial arts, MMA, Ultimate Fighting Championship, UFC, Charles Baron, Andrew Cuomo, NYC

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