Keller's Take
KELLER: The New York ban on MMA was a mistake, and 15 years of evidence proves it
Nov 15, 2011 - 10:32:38 PM KELLER: The New York ban on MMA was a mistake, and 15 years of evidence proves it

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BY WADE KELLER, MMATORCH SUPERVISING EDITOR

The argument to ban MMA back in the late-'90s was flawed then. It's even more flawed today. UFC is part of a lawsuit to lift a ban that outlawed MMA in New York State in 1997. The ban is illegal and should be overtuned.

There is no argument for banning MMA today that passes as anything but imposing "taste" on someone else. "I think MMA is in bad taste, so it should be banned," is about where the argument begins and ends.

I've explained it over and over again to people who wonder what I do for a living who aren't fans of MMA. They want to know why there aren't more rules or why chokes are allowed or why the gloves are so small or why they fight in a cage. They're all reasonable questions to ask. But each question has an answer, and usually when I'm done answering them, they're quite satisfied, if not intrigued with the sport in the context I present it.

MMA is what it says. It's a mix of centuries of martial arts styles coming together in as rule-neutral a setting as is practical and possible. The cage is there to keep fighters inside. It's not like pro wrestling, where fighters are thrown into it, or climb it and leap off of it, or rub their opponent's forehead against it to simulate violence.

It just so happens a cage is the most practical way to keep fighters on a raised stage without falling out and getting hurt, while also allowing fans, commissoners, judges, and announcers to see what's happening inside.

Chokes are allowed because that's one way to end a real fight. The more moves that are banned, the more fighters end up ignoring certain defensive strategies that would be necessary in a street fight. Every move that's banned makes MMA less and less a true test of what would actually work in a street fight situation. Eye gouges, low blows, fish hooks, etc. are something anyone would use if they were protecting a loved one in a street brawl. But in MMA, reasonable people can agree to exclude those from the contests.

But chokes are a legitimate way to get someone to tapout, or if they refuse, pass out briefly. It's as legitimate a strategy as a lineman tackling a quarterback to try to jar the ball loose before his knees touch the ground. There's a risk for injury in both situations. The uninitiated associate choking with serial killers, the Boston Strangler! They see it in that context and don't get the strategic, relatively harmless context of it being a way to gain a submission tapout win.

Smaller gloves compared to boxing allow the rich mix of martial arts techniques to be used that make MMA the more well-rounded test of fighting skills compared to boxing. They also don't artificially prolong a fight by delaying the knockout. It means fighters have to defend against a punch or pay a fight-ending price, as Cain Velasequez found out in his first pro loss on Saturday night.

The arguments in 1997 against MMA were close-minded, ill-informed, and an imposition of personal taste in a hypocritical way not backed by common sense or science. But 14 years later, with the track record of MMA being a safe sport statistically, it's time for critics to admit they were wrong. (There have been two deaths under current MMA rules in sanctioned fight since MMA was banned in New York, both on smaller non-UFC shows.)

A whole generation has grown up understanding the rule set that must exist for a skilled wrestler to test his specialty against a skilled kick boxer, or a skiilled jiu jitsu practicioner to test his skills against an Olympic wrestler. As the sport has evolved, some train in MMA - meaning they have no speciality and they try to be good at all aspects of a typical MMA fight. Others concentrate in one area and learn just enough to get by defensively against the rest. That's what makes this sport such a fascinating chess match, not the "blood sport" it was mischaracterized as by the older critics who grew up with the "sweet science" of boxing and saw no other viable way to watch men engage in a prize fight.

Any youth who follows MMA has a wide array of role models to choose from. The idea that MMA sets a bad example for kids is flawed and irrelevant. If MMA were banned as a sport for that reason, it would be among a long list of instutitions in this country that would need to be banned also. There's nothing uniquely dangerous or influential about MMA that would cause it to be justly banned before NASCAR (influences kids to drive fast and recklessly), boxing, kick boxing, pro hockey fighting, or football. MMA is a controlled environment with skilled fighters who pass physicals, follow rules or pay a price, and participate in a sport in which wins and losses lead to advancement or setback, just like any other sports competition.

I wrote about this back in the 1990s and spent hours on the phone with newspapers reporters in Michigan explaining all of the above. The sport has evolved as safely as was predictable 15 years ago when this first rose to a national controversy. It's time for critics to educate themselves on MMA's track record and give up the discriminatory, hypocritical stance that it should be banned.

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Wade Keller is supervising editor of MMATorch. He has covered MMA since before UFC 1 for the Torch Newsletter, and is among the longest tenured reporters covering the sport. He is a double-black-stripe belt in tae kwon do and has practiced judo and jiu jitsu at the North Star Martial Arts Academy under Michelle Holtze and Tom Crone. He founded MMATorch.com as a dedicated MMA website in 2006 and launched the MMATorch App in 2008. MMATorch is among the top five most read MMA-dedicated brands in the world.

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