McGuinty trips on martial arts
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by Eric Dowd
Toronto -- Premier Dalton McGuinty has changed his mind and will allow an alleged sport calling itself professional mixed martial arts to be staged in Ontario, but it is doubtful he knows quite what he is getting into.
The Liberal premier said only six months ago he had no interest in the province legalizing such contests, which consist mainly of muscular young men kicking opponents in the face and punching, kneeing or choking them until they submit or the referee intervenes.
He has reversed himself mainly because it will bring his government money to help it through economically difficult times.
McGuinty also has been subjected to intense, adroit lobbying by the multimillionaire owners of the so-called sport and their highly paid lobbyists, who never get close enough to the brawling to collect a splash of blood on their expensive suits, but sit back counting the money.
MMA is now permitted in many jurisdictions in the United States and Canada and large audiences can see and sadly enjoy it on pay-TV in Ontario.
Allowing bouts in arenas here will increase its live audiences and boost the profits of hotels, restaurants, bars and stores where it is held and the province will collect more tax, so there is a lot of money in it for McGuinty.
The premier said in February allowing mixed martial arts in Ontario is not a prority for him, which should have cooled off most advocates from pressing further.
But they persisted and pushed their case steadily, low-key and without rancor. They hired the biggest arena in Toronto to tell news media their athletes are wholesome and virtually boy scouts.
The lobbyists managed to get lengthy articles in all four of this city’s major daily newspapers that encouraged the advocates of mixed martial arts, while not actually endorsing legalizing it.
The Toronto Star, which editorially opposes legalizing MMA, published a news story saying a study by a university in the United States found 40 per cent of its bouts ended with injuries, but most were minor.
The Globe and Mail said “No-one has died in the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship, the dominant organization in the sport.) Fighters can honorably surrender by tapping out rather than being beaten into unconscious.”
Another Globe article suggested Ontarians should be allowed to watch “grown men kicking, punching and wrestling and generally beating the crap out of each other,” if they want to.
Toronto Sun writers have argued permitting MMA would create jobs and pump money into the economy and one declared he is proud to be a supporter of MMA and his paper has become of its official sponsors.
The National Post managed to find a member of one of Canada’s richest families, the Bronfmans, who is so enamoured of mixed martial arts she has built a gym for it in her 10-bedroom mansion.
Newspapers here have been exceptionally charitable to MMA, reporting its organizers’ claim there never has been a death in it, but this writer’s research found two fighters have died of injuries in contests staged by MMA-type organizations in recent years.
Two of the best-known fighters in UFC history clashed in Vancouver recently and the winner Rich Franklin broke his left arm and the loser Chuck Liddell lay motionless for several minutes before being carried to hospital.
In another, heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar was reported by news media as having “turned opponent Frank Mir’s face to mush with nasty-ground-and-pound” and added an insult about having sex with his opponent’s wife.
Mir was reported as saying he wanted to break Lesnar’s neck in their next fight.
Another UFC fighter, Chael Sonnen, boasted he could “drag Anderson Silva (his next opponent) outside the hotel and beat him up any time I want.” These sound the type of people the premier may want to take home to mother.
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