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Gygax · 05-07-2008, 12:16 PM

Since Serra and the UFC's efforts here would affect MMA in general, this is the appropriate forum.

Matt Serra was in Albany yesterday, helping to petition the state legislature to lift the ban on MMA in the state of New York.

Here's a good article from the New York Time' Albany blog regarding this visit, including an interesting blurb on the monies that Zuffa is spending to obtain this legalization.

Quote:

Matt Serra is a tough guy. He’s short and stocky and has been pummeling men with his bare fists — O.K., he wears an open-fingered glove — for years as a fighter with the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

But is he tough enough to strong-arm the State Legislature into lifting the state’s ban on mixed martial arts fighting?

Well, on Tuesday afternoon, he and a bunch of his associates came to Albany to state their case. A bill lifting the ban passed the Assembly last year, and this year it is scheduled to be heard by the Senate. New York is the only state that has a ban on the sport, said Lawrence Epstein, a lawyer for Ultimate Fighting, which is the largest company promoting the sport.

Gov. George E. Pataki, when he banned the sport 11 years ago, said at the time that ‘’to have someone who wins by using choke holds and kicking people while they are down is not someone our children should be looking to emulate.'’

Mr. Epstein said on Tuesday, “Our position is that they banned a sport that really doesn’t exist anymore.”

So far, the lawyer said, he has gotten positive feedback from the secretary of state, Lorraine A. Cortés-Vázquez, and state lawmakers. Ultimate Fighting, which is currently sanctioned by state athletic commissions in 32 states, says that New York would mean big money to the state, particularly the sagging upstate economy where it expects it would hold a majority of its fights.

But will legislation that would lift the ban ever pass muster?

“It’s tough to sort of prognosticate when it comes to whether something is going to pass, but I can tell you we have not received any negative feedback from any of the meetings that we’ve had,” Mr. Epstein said. “And I can tell you that part of it is the education process — we need to educate people about the sport. I think when people have certain perceptions and they are confronted with evidence all of a sudden, those perceptions change. In large part that’s what we are here trying to do — change those perceptions.”

(And by the way, Zuffa, the company that acquired Ultimate Fighting in 2001, seems to be covering its bases, retaining a $10,000-a-month Albany lobbying company, hiring a political consulting company used by Gov. Eliot Spitzer and donating more than $25,000 to the state Democratic Party in mid-January, all according to state records.)

Mr. Serra, a native of Long Island — whose last fight, in Montreal (which he lost and still wears the bloodied eye to prove it), was the most attended Ultimate Fighting event in the company’s history — said that he wants mixed martial arts in New York for one simple reason:

Serra said "I fought in Canada two weeks ago versus a Canadian. So that big 22,000-people crowd was booing my name. How would you feel about that? It was awful. If I fought the same guy in Madison Square Garden things could’ve been different.

Joining Mr. Serra and another tough guy, Matt Hamill, of Utica, Mr. Epstein opined on the virtues of the new incarnation of Ultimate Fighting and its warriors.

He said things have changed since posters advertising the Ultimate Fighting matches read, “There Are No Rules.”

The early days of Ultimate Fighting featured more of a “freak show and a spectacle,” said Mr. Serra, a former welterweight champion.

But new ownership brought new rules, regulations, extensive drug-testing policies and safety measures that banned extremely dangerous moves and maneuvers, he said.

Mr. Epstein described the fighters as “smart guys, articulate guys, college graduates, helping in their community and making a living in the U.F.C., too.”

Mr. Epstein added: “We’re battling everyday and I think we’ve come a long way, and you know there are always going to be those who don’t investigate this or look at it as deeply as we’d like them to. I guess we will continue to have that, but I think we’re over the hump.”