How do we get MMA legalized in Ontario?

Had dinner with MMA Connected’s “Showdown” Joe Ferraro last night and then guested on his Fan 590 MMA radioshow along with SzeJack Tan (Joe describes Szejack in Entourage terms, calling him E to his Vince and that’s pretty apt as Szejack is definitely connected and capable of making things happen inside the MMA community in Toronto).

Lots of topics were on the table, from boxer James Toney’s bid to fight in the UFC (absolutely ludicrous, if you ask me) to UFC 115 being set for Vancouver on June 12. On air we did a UFC 108 post-mortem and I went out on a limb to predict that by this time next year Junior dos Santos will be the heavyweight champ (if Brock Lesnar returns from his illness – and that’s still a very big if – I don’t think he’ll be the same fighter who turned Frank Mir’s face into salsa at UFC 100).

Of course, we spent most of our off-air time batting around the biggest question in MMA (for us) right now – how do we get the sport sanctioned in the province of Ontario? Just because the UFC wants to put an event in the Air Canada Centre or the Rogers Centre, just because it would be the biggest gate in the sport’s history and bring millions into the local economy, dollars just don’t make enough sense to convince the few officials and politicians who can make it happen to actually get it done. It still comes down to an image problem, the safety issue, the perceived brutality, that all the statistics and doctor’s notes haven’t been able to dispel.

Joe and SzeJack and I didn’t just sit around and grumble about MMA being outlawed in Ontario, we’re well past that. We spent much of the time talking about how to move the argument forward with the people who matter – the politicians, athletic officials, mainstream media, the general non-MMA-loving public. I hesitate to call last night’s tête-à-tête-à-tête a war council, but in effect that’s what it was. Alliances formed, plans drawn. Time to front-burner the issue and get this done.