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It seems that everywhere I look, the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is in the news.
The high-impact and polarising sport, which began in 1993 as a competition between elite martial arts athletes of different disciplines in Denver, Colorado, has come up against a brick-wall barrier in my home state of Victoria, Australia.
The competition has rapidly risen in popularity in the last 10 years and the UFC itself has evolved to become a competition between multi-disciplinary martial and combat artists, instead of just pitching one method against another.
As a result, Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) and Brazilian Jiujitsu are now popular self-defence and fitness classes, not only with men, but with women and children also.
I live in Melbourne and as such, I live and breath sport all year round. I work in a building a stone’s throw from my chosen place of worship, the Melbourne Cricket Ground (MCG).
I, like many Victorians, paid for and thoroughly enjoyed the most recent pay-per-view Main Event, UFC168 on Foxtel.
As a 27-year-old woman, I very much enjoyed seeing women placed on an equivalent level to men.
They fight three round bouts for a non-title match and five rounds in a title. Each round does not last longer than five minutes. The match is commentated with the same amount of passion and the crowd cheers with the same intensity. It is electric.
The women are held up to the same standard, and have no concessions in rules, other than slightly different weight divisions and classifications.
They, like all combatants that step into the cage known as The Octagon, must follow all regulations outlined in the Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts.
The airing of Rousey versus Tate next to Weidman versus Silva – Anderson Silva being widely regarded as the best MMA competitor of all time – would be comparable to a state women’s football league grand final being aired as the precursor to the AFL grand final.
This co-Main Event bout was approved by Dana White, a man who stated two years ago women will never fight in the UFC…
So it would seem the UFC has matured at a faster rate than our own state government, almost as the term ‘UFC’ rose from near obscurity into popular vernacular.
A ban on any sport in Melbourne is detrimental to one of its main tourist attractions and denies our very nature as a community of sport enthusiasts.
Our state government under Premier Denis Napthine has maintained a 2008 ban on any fights held in a cage. Sports and Recreation Minister James Merlino has supported the continued ban, and negotiations between the state government and UFC promoters have broken down.
Despite the many benefits of the UFC coming to Melbourne, an estimated 40-50 million dollars benefit being the most pertinent, the opposition has been staunch.
I have had difficulty understanding their stance, so have tried to reverse my view.
The UFC promotes ‘no-holds-barred’ style of combat which is ferocious, fast-paced and often very bloody.
In reality the regulations and medical requirements are strict and enforced effectively. However, this mode of fighting has negative connotations with careless violence, a trend that is being heavily promoted against in town, denoted by the popularity of the ‘Step Back. THINK’ campaign.
In a society where kids get king-hit and die during a night out, it is easy to see why a government at any level will not openly state, “Sure, cage fighting, sweet! Let’s get on it.”
Any link to seemingly unregulated violence would obviously be the wrong PR choice for a government already struggling to gain popular support by the voting majority.
The outspoken few who vehemently oppose the UFC worry about the possibility of a snowball effect on society’s psyche.
Will my child try to take-down another in the street in the hope of breaking their arm in a Judo armbar? This thinking is akin to Helen Lovejoy (Reverand Lovejoy’s wife in the television series, The Simpsons) remonstrating, “Won’t somebody please think of the children?!”
In reality, the most likely effect further acceptance of the UFC will have in Victoria is more people enrolling in self-defence and fitness classes, and is no more dangerous to the collective psyche than boxing, karate or taekwondo.
The answer that I can provide to those who feel squeamish at the thought of a bloody fights is, don’t watch.
The abolishment of this cage ban is not going to force you to view these bouts, however, it will give Victorian fans the opportunity to see the sport at its highest level.
There have been serious injuries in the UFC, extensive hard wear and tear on the body will do that. MMA fights have led to, or may be the cause of three fatalities, these were regulated by the same rules that the UFC follow, but were not sanctioned by them.
There have been no fatalities during a UFC sanctioned fight. Boxing is not banned, yet the number of related deaths number the hundreds.
The injury rate in UFC has been reported as 23.7 per 100 fights, which is comparable to competitive boxing and karate.
The latest Australian Rules Football injury rate I could find was 37.6 in 22 matches per club in the 2009 season. Significantly higher, and yet the sport is often compared to religion in Melbourne.
Regardless, the threat of serious injury or death cannot be used as a reason to disallow cage fighting, because these injuries can happen in any MMA contest. MMA contests are not banned in Victoria, only caged fights.
The main argument to lift the ban is that MMA is safer in the cage! I have heard of many MMA fights spilling out of the ring, increasing the risk of injury to the competitors and judges, who sit close to the ring by necessity.
So what is the problem with UFC? Is it the violence, or the public relations image of fighting in a cage?
If it’s the violence, this ban is not stopping anything. MMA is legal and bouts in the ring are sanctioned.
If it’s the negative ‘cage-fight’ image, all that’s being asked is that the most elite and highly regulated version of the sport is on display.
To people that do not like the sport, all that changes in the packaging. To fans of MMA, it is the gift of the world’s best coming to perform, just for them.
The only purpose the continuation of this antiquated ban by the Napthine Government serves is to deny fans the opportunity to enjoy MMA at its most elite level.
It also prevents athletes who live in Melbourne, and have attained the required level of skill, fitness and strength, from feeling the swell of a local crowd behind them, as they fight at the highest level in their chosen discipline.
If a succinct and reasonable explanation with proof can be produced to effectively rebut my arguments, I will eat humble pie.
However, if MMA fighting in a ring continues to be sanctioned in Victoria, while the UFC is refused a foothold in the greatest sporting town in Australia, I will continue to write in the hope that others will join me, and the state government will be shamed into acceptance by each and every Victorian fan who is currently being unfairly denied the Ultimate Fighting Championship in our home town.
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