Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Monday, June 27, 2011
Assembly Says No MMA? UCL Says "Suck It"
Hot on the heels of the New York State Assembly’s decision to let the MMA bill die in committee was another installment of the Underground Combat League – this one in an Outer Borough location so secret, I’d have to kill you if I told you where it was (or when it was; I was asked specifically to wait on reporting on the event, hence no liveblog). There were submissions! There were returning veterans and green newcomers! There were aliases! And there was no air conditioning! Highlights included:
- Ironman Jarrett McBride, who fought for a kickboxing championship in a Long Island promotion a few days earlier, but wanted to get a vale tudo match before he went back home to Rochester. He may have fallen to Twin Towers Wrestling Club rep Pedro Vila, but damn, that’s a lot of fighting.
- Jonathan Rodriquez’s spirited performance against the salty wrestler Kirkland Campbell, a UFC old schooler who still has some ground and pound left in him to dole out. Unfortunately for Campbell, Rodriguez’s jiu-jitsu was too slick, and he was forced to tap out.
- The war between Gracie Barra product Chiki Obi and New Generation Karate fighter Junior Lubin. They went the distance pounding on each other in back-and-forth fashion, and though Lubin was game, it was an exhausted Obi who wound up with the decision.
Check out the Raw Combat YouTube page for videos, including an interview with UCL promoter Peter Storm.
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
New York State Assembly Opts for More Underground Shows... Again
Another year, another dance with the New York State legislature. This time around, Zuffa put a lot of public pressure on the Powers That Be - holding a press conference at Madison Square Garden, handing out T-shirts, writing an op-ed piece in the New York Daily News, sacrificing virgins, etc. And once again it was all for naught. Oh well. By now you have to damn stupid to get your hopes up that the folks in Albany will sanction a sport that's sanctioned in 45 other states. The upside to all this nonsense, though, is that we now have a pretty well-mobilized grassroots movement, we have a clearer picture of who the sport's enemies are (Assemblyman Herman Farrell in Ways and Means, I'm looking at you), and we have greater public awareness. Also, when RAW COMBAT, my book on the New York underground fight scene, comes out in the fall, people can beat Farrell, Bob Reilly and Sheldon Silver over the heads with it. Literally, just beat them over the heads.
