UFC’s Ratner Bullish On Professional MMA Events In New York

July 12th, 2008 · 2 Comments

Despite the fact that the New York state assembly recently denied the bill to legalize Mixed Martial Arts, Marc Ratner - the VP of Government and Regulatory Affairs for the UFC, is still very positive on the future of the sport in the Empire State.

“I am bullish on the future of MMA in New York. It is going to happen, I feel very strongly.”

It just won’t happen in 2008 – a year in which Dana White, the UFC president, had targeted to expand with a huge pay per view event in Madison Square Garden. Ratner shed some light as to why the bill stumbled in Albany.

“The Tourism Committee … our bill did not come out of there. One of the legislators needs to be properly educated, because he said something about no referees. Some people think it is still no holds barred, or, no rules.”

Ratner joined the UFC specifically to work towards sanctioning the sport in all 50 states. Currently, 35 states have legalized MMA and Illinois is very close to hosting a UFC event, needing only to clarify the rules. Ratner also noted that the UFC is excited about upcoming events in recently approved states, as well as plans to expand beyond the United States.

“The next few months we are going to Minneapolis, Atlanta and working on Illinois - already approved there - just have to get rules in place. We have very ambitious plans globally - maybe Macao, Dubai, Australia … all kinds of things going.”

Yes, the UFC is growing quickly, but Ratner reiterated - despite the recent setback Tri-State fans should not worry. MMA and the UFC will be in New York soon.

“We have been talking to the Times Union Arena in Albany to locations in Utica, Buffalo, and Syracuse. Madison Square Garden - I have talked to them once a week for the last year and half. Is it going happen? Yes, but not this year. We are going to keep lobbying and educating and it is not the same sport it was 15 years ago … that is what they have to understand.”

Tags: Print News

2 responses so far ↓

1 Robert Joyner // Jul 12, 2008 at 9:39 am

you may want to put quote marks around the last paragraph…..

i’m going to link to this article from mmapayout.com today or on Monday….

nice job with the site so far…..
2 Hattori Hanzo // Jul 13, 2008 at 5:35 am

The elected representantives of NY are losing out on a great opportunity to bring revenue to the state.

Off The Cuff... Edgar VS. Alvarez!

In early May, I was down at Almeida BJJ to shoot and produce a feature on Frankie Edgar tied to his photo shoot for FIGHT! magazine. That video will be on Fightmagazine.com soon. While working, I was lucky to witness one of the great sparring sessions in my day. Edgar was going toe-to-toe with Eddie Alvarez who was one week out from his fight V. Josh Neer. Now, I have known Frankie for some time, so I might be biased but he did seem to control the action. Standing, his fast hands and feet allowed him to get off first much like we saw against BJ and Sherk. Each man got a couple takedowns but the overall pace and forward movement seemed slightly in favor of Edgar. Now, in Eddie's defense, he may have been only seeking to work on one element of his game V. Edgar and only trying to react or setup something only he knew of, specific to the Josh Neer fight ... so in that respect, it was not a true test of each fighting the other under the same context. That said, there was not really anything off limits - it was vicious jab/right combos from Frankie followed, at one point, by a head over heel body-throw take-down from Eddie on Frankie ... neither giving an inch. It felt like the real thing minus the the bright lights and octagon. It seemed to get harsh a couple of times but that may have just been my read. In the end, hard core sparring at play. Two of the top-5 lightweights on the planet going after each other at 110% on a lazy Thursday morning in Hamilton, NJ. After the session, what did Edgar do... relax-no, he went to use a chainsaw and chop down small trees in a friend's backyard for three hours.