Fans call bouts like this one in City of Commerce, Calif., Friday part of an empowering sport. (WireImage)
ALBANY — Girl power!
Feminist fans of professional cage fighting say the sport is empowering, not sexist.
“I believe it sends a really positive message. It’s consistent with women’s advancement,” said Jennifer Bonjean, a legal commentator and mixed martial arts enthusiast.
Promoters of Ultimate Fighting Championship and the owners of Madison Square Garden are trying to persuade Albany to legalize MMA bouts, in which fighters use punches, kicks, slams and chokeholds.
And that includes bouts with women.
Forty-four other states sanction mixed martial arts bouts — among them New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Massachusetts.
The bill has passed the New York state Senate, and Gov. Cuomo seems to be warming to the idea, prompting the National Organization for Women last week to question why the governor would even consider legalizing such a “vicious and violent sport.”
The bill has stalled in the Democratic-controlled Assembly, where Speaker Sheldon Silver said a majority of his party’s assemblywomen don’t support the idea.
Silver, a booster of rough-and-tumble New York Rangers hockey, questioned how much revenue MMA brings in.