KICK STARTER: Professional MMA fighter Matt Hughes (right) — here fighting with Matt Serra in a 2009 UFC bout — took his case to Albany yesterday, lobbying for legislators to authorize the increasingly popular sport. (
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ALBANY — Fighters went to the mat at the State Capitol yesterday to finally bring professional mixed-martial-arts (MMA) bouts to New York — and they found Gov. Cuomo already in their corner.
After lobbying lawmakers in the Capitol, Ultimate Fighting Championship Hall of Famer Matt Hughes and three other fighters showed off their moves at a nearby arena in an exhibition with local high-school wrestlers.
The campaign to promote the wildly popular sport came only hours after Cuomo made some of his strongest comments in support of legalizing professional MMA bouts in the state.
Cuomo told upstate’s Capitol Pressroom radio show yesterday that the state should take MMA “seriously” if it promises “significant economic advancement.”
“I think we need jobs, I think we need economic activity, especially in upstate New York,” he said. “I think this is a major endeavor that is televised, that is happening all over the country at this point. You’re not going to stop it from happening, and I’m interested in the economic potential for the state.”
The UFC — by far the largest MMA promotion company — claims professional matches would generate more than $100 million in economic activity for New York in the first two years.
Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver (D-Manhattan) — legalization’s biggest stumbling block, who recently called professional matches in New York inevitable — seemed unmoved yesterday.
“The revenue estimates we’ve seen are not that impressive — somewhere between $2 million and $5 million on an annual basis” for the state, he said.
Meantime, the Culinary Workers Union Local 226 of Las Vegas, locked in a dispute with UFC leadership, helped organize a lobbying effort and news conference aimed at blocking legalization in New York.
The press event featured women’s groups and three Democratic lawmakers who called the sport dangerous and violent and maintained that any economic benefits should be weighed against medical costs to retired fighters with head and other injuries.
The union is trying to organize several Las Vegas casinos owned by the UFC’s owners and has waged a behind-the-scenes campaign against the sport in New York.
Lorenzo Fertitta, a UFC co-owner, yesterday accused the culinary union of using the women’s groups as pawns for its own agenda.
And UFC COO Lawrence Epstein said his group is helping to fund a brain study by the Cleveland Clinic.
Albany County District Attorney David Soares, a liberal Democrat who watched yesterday’s exhibition and called himself a fan and supporter, said critics “do not understand the sport.
“Mixed martial arts is providing the same path for a lot of kids as boxing did,” he said.
The Senate has passed a bill to legalize MMA the past four years, but it has been blocked in the Assembly.