UFC 115 in Vancouver Facing Potential Legislative Trouble
by Scott Haber on Mar 3, 2010 2:50 PM EST
in MMA Events
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Pancrase veteran and British Columbia MMA promoter Paul "The Mauler" Lazenby attended a meeting of the Vancouver Athletic Commission yesterday in order to obtain a promoter's license for a small MMA show he is organizing. While there, Lazenby uncovered some troubling news about the UFC's planned event at GM Place on June 12th (UFC 115) which he discusses on his blog:
In spite of Vancouver City Council's approval of a two-year trial period for MMA, I found out that there are still no regulations in place to promote the sport professionally within the city. The problem lies in the fact that the city is still expressing grave concerns about legal and financial liability, while movement toward a resolution of those concerns appears to have been extremely sluggish.
At one point, newly-elected VAC chair Mirko Mladenovic (a supporter of properly-sanctioned MMA) asked Mr. Hammel when the legal issues might be resolved, to which Mr. Hammel replied, "About two months" in a manner that indicated to me that it may be even longer. Paradoxically, Mr. Hammel also said that an MMA event could technically be held at Vancouver's PNE Fairgrounds, which have previously hosted major events by bodogFIGHT and Elite Fighting Championships, but added that such an event would be subject to the approval of the PNE board.
That's an apparent dead-end, since that board has already issued flat refusals to Edmontion's Maximum Fighting Championships and eastern Canada's Elite-1, stating that they have no desire to host any MMA event on their premises. Hearing all that I damn near stopped breathing, since it would mean that unless something changes, and quickly, then our UFC event is already dead in the water.
As MMA Mania pointed out when they broke this story just a short while ago, the UFC previously ran into a similar issue in Montreal last April when they were planning UFC 97, although that controversy stemmed from the disastrous "Strikebox" event and subsequent fan "involvement" that occurred there. Fortunately, the UFC was able to salvage the Montreal event by making a few strange compromises regarding rule changes and by gently reminding the athletic commission of the huge financial upside surrounding a live UFC event.
Right now, the UFC hasn't even officially announced the Vancouver event, which is expected to be headlined by the third meeting of TUF 11 coaches Chuck Liddell and Tito Ortiz, and possibly by Randy Couture vs. Rich Franklin as well, but as news of this issue spreads, it's likely that we'll learn more about the planning behind UFC 115 and how the UFC plans on dealing with this serious hang-up.
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I'm not too worried about this show not happening.
It’s definitely gonna happen. The Liberals just tabled a shitty budget and Gregor Robertson’s Vision team is dealing with a $1 billion athlete’s village as well as an additional $30 million in additional Olympic costs that Vancouverites will be paying off for the next 10 years.
You have to be the man... you have to be very, like, alpha male with her. You know? Decide what you do and everything. So, show her who's the boss, you know? - GSP
And I'll be amazed if those are the only costs.
Who covered the $900 million security bill? Is anyone backing Richmond’s cost overrun on the Oval (I recognise part of the agreement to put it there required that Richmond cover it, but does anyone expect Richmond not to get bailed out?)?
And that budget – was it written in an alternate reality? They’re projecting big economic growth, even though the weak US economy continues to hurt BC’s tourism, the high Canadian dollar hurt’s BC’s film industry, and there is no evidence at all of an economic boom associated with hosting the Olympics.
Gordon Campbell must still be drunk.
I like using semi-colons; they make me feel smart.
& what about the pure decadency of trucking snow in & flying it by helicopter up the hills cuz all the snow on the mountains had melted. Helicopters flying 1000lb bales of hay up the mountains to pad & shape the hill before they even flew the snow up there. How many hundreds & thousands of truck loads & helicopter trips to get snow up there.
On Y2K Alex Jones was on the radio yelling that Russian was nuking the USA.
Now is this an indictment of Alex Jones, or an indictment of Jones' fans.
It seems as though people love being lied to & having their money stolen from them.
Viva L' America
Don't forget the fleet of buses they leased to transport people up Cypress Mountain
only to discover that those urban buses couldn’t handle the grade. So they had to lease another 99 highway coaches on two days’ notice just before the games started.
I like using semi-colons; they make me feel smart.
Campbell is probably still waving a flag somewhere.
Seriously, every time you saw him, that’s what he was doing. Someone should have really taken that thing away from him. Bottom line: Any revenue is better than none.
You have to be the man... you have to be very, like, alpha male with her. You know? Decide what you do and everything. So, show her who's the boss, you know? - GSP
Yes, I found that rather comical as well.
by HarmlessNinja on Mar 4, 2010 4:33 AM EST up reply actions
The security bill got covered by the Feds in exchange for cancelling huge chunks of BC’s infrastructure payments from Ottawa for the next decade. It was a terrible ten cents on the dollar deal, and stupid to boot.
"I'm AJB and I endorse this nut-puncher."
by AJB on Mar 3, 2010 4:19 PM EST up reply actions
Smart politics, though.
By the time those infrastructure payments are a problem, no one will remember why.
And Gordo will be in some jail in Hawaii. Again.
I like using semi-colons; they make me feel smart.
http://www.armageddonfc.com/ had an event in victoria featuring none other than kalib starnes, it was in August, it was very well done, why not have the UFC come to Victoria?
do you know how jam packed the ferry would be, LOL
On Y2K Alex Jones was on the radio yelling that Russian was nuking the USA.
Now is this an indictment of Alex Jones, or an indictment of Jones' fans.
It seems as though people love being lied to & having their money stolen from them.
Viva L' America
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