As MMA Arrives in Ontario, Anti-MMA Voices Surface

By Michael David Smith

We’re used to it by now. Those of us who love mixed martial arts have come to accept that our sport will be subjected to ignorant, unfair commentary from people who don’t understand it and don’t care to understand it, and that the anti-MMA voices will grow particularly loud any time the sport becomes regulated in an area where it had previously been banned.

But even if we’re used to it, and it would be easier just to ignore it, sometimes it’s valuable to point out some of the over-the-top assertions about MMA that come out in the local media whenever the sport arrives in a new town.

So with MMA recently being legalized in Ontario, let’s take a look at some of the problems with this Windsor Star column by Anne Jarvis.

Jarvis starts with this:
“So, Maximum Fighting Championship 29: Conquer is coming to Caesars Windsor next month. They’ll have to hose the blood off the floor of the Colosseum.  Mixed martial arts is the full-contact, almost no-holdsbarred sport combining boxing, wrestling and martial arts. Bouts are fought in a cage. It’s bloody barbaric, and I meant that pun.”

Good one.
“Half of bouts end in a knockout, technical knockout or “choke out,” all of which can cause brain injury. Some of these guys will likely suffer chronic traumatic encephalopathy, like hockey player Bob Probert.”

 

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