MMA is not likely to be legalized in New York this year.
Despite many positive signs in the last few weeks, UFC president Dana White seemed to concede Thursday that the bill will not be passed in 2013.
“I’d pretty much call it done, yeah,” White told reporters at UFC on FOX 7 media day in San Jose, Calif. “They didn’t even put it in the budget. Anything can happen, (but) I’m not as optimistic as I was a few weeks ago.”
The New York State Senate passed the MMA bill by a landslide – 47-15 – and nearly half the state Assembly has signed on to it. The momentum has grown since The Post reported that an Assembly staffer, Joe Brady, fought in an amateur MMA bout just blocks away from the Capitol. Amateur MMA is legal in New York, but professional MMA is not.
Assembly Majority Leader Joseph Morelle, the bill’s sponsor, said that Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver promised to bring the bill before the 106-member Democratic conference before the end of the legislative session in June “to see if there is a consensus.”’
“It’s a recognition of the fact there are a growing number of members in favor of regulating it and bringing it to New York,” Morelle (D-Rochester) said earlier this month.
But Morelle also warned they “don’t have a majority of members in our conference.” New York would become the 49th state to legalize the sport and Silver said last month that MMA will be cleared eventually.
White just doesn’t think it’ll be this year. He said in December that his goal was to have the UFC’s 20-year anniversary show at Madison Square Garden in November, but has now ruled that out.
“There’s going to be a 20-year anniversary,” White said. “It’s just not going to be at MSG. … But wherever we go for the 20-year, it’s going to be big.”
The Culinary Workers Union 226 from Las Vegas and its parent organization UNITE HERE continue to be significant opposition to MMA in New York, spending money and rallying special interest groups against the sport. But their beef is with UFC co-owners Frank and Lorenzo Fertitta, who own Station Casinos, the largest non-union hotel group in Las Vegas. The feud between the union and the Fertittas has gone on for years and UNITE HERE is exacting revenge with lobbying in New York.
“Everybody wants [MMA in New York] except the culinary union,” White said. “Let me tell you this: Every time we try to move forward and progress in New York, the Las Vegas Culinary Union starts hammering everybody with letters, and they’re working the politicians and everything else.
“I have a question for you: In Las Vegas, we put on however many fights a year? How come they’re not writing any letters in Las Vegas? They’re from Las Vegas. And if the UFC is this horrible thing that they write about, why aren’t they sending letters to the MGM Grand, Mandalay Bay, the Nevada State Athletic Commission – and the list goes on an on? Why are they only writing letters to New York? Does that make any sense to anybody? So what’s good for Vegas, Vegas can reap the benefits of all the economic impact we have, all the good things that happen when a UFC event comes in to Vegas, but New York can’t? Why is that? Dirty, rotten scumbags.”
