Liveblog: World MMA Expo Part 2

It's time now for the panel discussion title "The Future of MMA in New York". The speakers include athletic commission chairwoman Melvina Lathan, Mike Kim (the guy who drafted the legislation that will soon be passed legalizing pro MMA), and Eddie Goldman. Also on hand are an assortment of fortune tellers, soothsayers, prognosticators, clairvoyants and gypsies that read chicken gizzards. Melvina is up first, and the crux of her speech is a brief history of the commission's oversight of MMA before it was banned in 1996. She stresses that the commission currently has no regulatory power over it, that the law has to change. Mike Kim is now talking about the legalization process and where the MMA bill stands. Eddie, meanwhile, is contributing by blowing up balloons and making animals and a crown.