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  #41  
Old Posted Mar 19, 2009, 4:51 PM
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Originally Posted by vanlaw View Post
I'm not a UFC fan at all, but the two events in Montréal (one past and one coming up) have been a massive success - obviously in part due to GSP being the home town favorite. In the upcoming event in Montreal, UFC had to make a few rule changes in order for the event to be sanctioned, so I don’t see why the same couldn’t work in Vancouver. The more high profile events we can attract, the better, even if not all of us are fans.
Yep. I couldn't agree with your last statement more. I'd love for Vancouver to attract more high profile events/activities, even if some of us may not be fans of that sport/event. I'm all for Vancouver being more "higher profile" with regards to events, and sports. I personally think UFC is eventually going to happen in this city. UFC is just too popular for it not to happen here, and like the article that Locked In had posted, the police are worried that if the sport is not sanctioned, eventually it would go the underground route - that would just make things worse, in my opinion. Does anyone know when they are to decide whether to allow the UFC event in the city?
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  #42  
Old Posted Mar 19, 2009, 5:55 PM
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Agreed. I'm not a fan of UFC either, but that doesn't mean that there aren't people who are. Bring MMA to Vancouver!
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  #43  
Old Posted Mar 19, 2009, 8:59 PM
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to ban MMA is completely stupid.

I see no difference between MMA and boxing or karate. everybody who has watched Rocky 3 and the Karate Kid, knows that people get hurt in these types of sports. pushing it underground just makes it more dangerous.

that being said, i do not think MMA (or boxing) should be an olympic sport. olympics should not be about pummeling your opponent.
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  #44  
Old Posted Mar 19, 2009, 9:11 PM
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here's to hoping that Vancouver will open its doors to the MMA. My opinion is that it would bring a greater sporting scene that includes the MLS, NHL, CFL, to the city. Maybe bring back the Ravens (NLL), and *gasp* the NBA (post-olympics)? I don't know how credible David Pratt is on TEAM1040, but he said the other day that the NBA's coming back after the 2010 Olympics. when i heard about that possibility, i was excited, but i don't think it'll happen. maybe 30 years down the road - or never. with that being said, would i welcome the NBA back if they came back? yep. I would, and the new management needs to put a strategy in place of reaching the large asian population in this city. ah well.
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  #45  
Old Posted Mar 23, 2009, 10:16 PM
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There will be a golden opportunity to re-enter the NBA when Seattle finally builds a new arena and are awarded a new expansion franchise for the NBA since the league prefers to expand by 2 cities at a time.

However, the franchise will only survive if it is owned by the Canucks ownership group.
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  #46  
Old Posted Mar 24, 2009, 10:13 PM
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Quote:
Note to council: The Ultimate Fighting Championship wants to come to Vancouver

By Marc Ratner, Special to The Sun, Vancouver Sun March 24, 2009 3:02 PM

On Thursday, the City of Vancouver Standing Committee on City Services and Budgets will receive a report from staff that asks council to either ban mixed martial arts or regulate it. This decision comes at a time when states and cities across North America and Europe are opting to embrace MMA rather than chase it out of town. Vancouver should do likewise.

Since 1993, the Ultimate Fighting Championship has presented the premier athletes in mixed martial arts, a sport which encompasses boxing, kickboxing, jiu-jitsu, wrestling, and several other martial arts disciplines to produce some of the most exciting combat sports action I've ever seen.

And I’ve seen a lot of combat sports. For 14 years, I was fortunate enough to be ringside for some of the biggest and most memorable boxing matches in history in my capacity as the executive director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission.

Now, as the Vice President of Government and Regulatory Affairs for the UFC, I not only get to be Octagonside as the worlds best mixed martial artists compete, I also have the opportunity to expand this exciting sport around the world.

Part of my job with the UFC is to educate athletic commissions and legislatures about the sport and clear up any misconceptions about it, so, as I can't be at Thursday's council meeting, kindly accept this as my pitch.

First, contrary to the myth, there are rules in mixed martial arts; over 30 of them to be exact, and these rules ensure that the safety of the athlete comes first. Every UFC event is sanctioned by the local athletic commission in whatever state or province we are holding the event in, which means all proper medical procedures are followed before, after, and during an event. The medical standards that are applied to boxing are also followed by the UFC for each and every event, and I am proud to say that in the history of the organization, there has never been a death in the Octagon or an injury more serious than a broken arm.

Another misconception about mixed martial artists is that the competitors are untrained barbarians brawling for the sake of brawling. This couldn’t be further from the truth. The athletes that in the Ultimate Fighting Championship are just that: athletes. They train tirelessly in not one combat sports discipline, but at least three, in order to compete at the highest level of the sport. Ask any professional athlete in any sport what they think of those who compete in MMA, and they’ll tell you they are the best prepared athletes in the world. In fact, Sportsnet named the UFC welterweight champion, Georges St-Pierre of Montreal, as 2008’s Canadian Athlete of the Year, ahead of NHL star Jarome Iginla, Paralympian Chantal Petitclerc, tennis’ Daniel Nestor and Major League baseball star Justin Morneau.

But what impresses me about our athletes goes way beyond what they do when the bell rings. These are some of the truest gentlemen you will ever meet, and they come from all walks of life. Our roster consists of many fighters from Canada, as well as the United States, Brazil, Japan, France, England, Sweden, and they all bring unique stories to the Octagon. Some were firemen, police officers, teachers, and engineers before becoming full-time fighters, and many have college degrees. We even took an internal survey last year and found more than half of our roster had attended college, 50 have four-year degrees, and three had earned Masters degrees. Many have competed at the Olympic and Division I collegiate level of their chosen discipline with great success.

In these tough economic times, I would be remiss if I didn’t touch on the economic impact a UFC event brings to a city. As an example, on April 18 we will be holding an event in Montreal’s Bell Centre, our second show in that venue. 18,000 tickets were sold two months in advance of the show - our second sell-out there in twelve months - which generated $4.6 million in ticket revenue. We’ve been told by the Bell Centre that over half of that crowd comes from outside Montreal, so the economic benefit for local businesses can be anywhere from $6 to $8 million alone for a single three-hour event.

And this isn’t a situation where the UFC comes in for one night, makes some money and leaves, never to be heard from again. We’re looking to build a sport in Vancouver, and anywhere else we go. In the last couple of years, as well as the province of Quebec, we’ve added London, Dublin, Belfast, Manchester, Birmingham, and Newcastle to the list of international cities that have welcomed the UFC locally. We will be visiting Germany in June, and close to 40 states in the United States have sanctioned the sport in the last decade, including the two states considered to be the capitals for professional combat sports, Nevada and New Jersey.

In fact, the Nevada and New Jersey athletic commissions wrote the unified rules of mixed martial arts that the UFC lives by.

MMA is a great international sport that I am privileged to be associated with, and we would love to bring it to Vancouver so fight fans here can experience it for themselves.

--Marc Ratner is a former Executive Director of the Nevada State Athletic Commission and is Vice President of Government and Regulatory Affairs at the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
Source: The Vancouver Sun -- http://www.vancouversun.com/Sports/w...471/story.html
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  #47  
Old Posted Mar 27, 2009, 5:05 PM
LotusLand LotusLand is offline
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http://vancitybuzz.blogspot.com/2009...s-to-grow.html

A rather scathing rant on the impotence of Vision Vancouver and its deflection of UFC and MMA in Vancouver.
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  #48  
Old Posted Apr 2, 2009, 6:06 AM
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  #49  
Old Posted Apr 2, 2009, 7:01 AM
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haha...nice picture
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  #50  
Old Posted Apr 2, 2009, 4:17 PM
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  #51  
Old Posted Apr 14, 2009, 1:27 AM
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Quote:
Vancouver council set to embrace MMA in city-owned facilities

By Chris Parry, Vancouver SunApril 13, 2009 5:02 PM

Mixed martial arts may be coming to Vancouver after all.

Mayor Gregor Robertson and several Vision councillors have been working behind the scenes to get municipal and provincial authorities on the same page on the MMA issue.

Vision Vancouver Coun. Heather Deal said a March 26 council vote to send the issue back to staff for more study was widely interpreted as a rebuff for the sport, but in fact council was only doing its homework.


Mixed martial arts fans were distinctly unhappy when council asked for provincial assistance and further study. But Deal told those feeling snubbed by the city: “Not so fast.”

Part of the city’s effort involves making contact with the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the largest organization that runs MMA events.

Marc Ratner, vice-president of regulatory affairs for the UFC, said his organization expects to meet with city officials soon.

“We are working on setting up a meeting with the mayor, after our [April 18] show in Montreal, to have the sport of MMA properly regulated,” Ratner said in an e-mail to The Vancouver Sun.

Council’s March decision annoyed not only the sport’s supporters, but also members of the city’s own athletic commission.

Dr. Rajindar Sandhu, the commission’s physician, accused council at the time of not wanting to make a decision.

Deal said council could have done a better job of making its intentions clear, but added that city staff have been working hard to clarify the issues, including whether there’s support for allowing MMA events in city-owned buildings.

“We asked about the business case regarding city-owned facilities, whether there was interest in hosting MMA, and the answer seems to be, ‘Absolutely.’”

Deal said she understands the frustration of MMA supporters, but added that council’s decision has been portrayed “the most negative way possible.”

“We’re for the sport. We never wanted to ban it,” she said. “People interpreted our vote as being a ‘no’ and it wasn’t that at all. We were actually working two parallel tracks to get to a ‘yes’ vote sooner. We wanted to see if the province has changed their attitude to the sport, while we had our own staff working to tackle the liability question.”

That is good news for Chilliwack MMA promoter Paul Daniel, who has held eight Valleyfight events on Sto:lo land due to a local ban on MMA in public buildings. The latest event was an 800-seat sellout.

“We’re simply too big to keep doing tiny shows in whatever hall we can find,” Daniel said. “We really want to do monthly shows in buildings that can hold a few thousand or more, so if Vancouver is stepping up, we’d be very interested in shifting our events downtown.”

Deal said: “We’ll have something to show them soon to demonstrate how we’re moving forward ... within a short term. Maybe a week or two.”

Deal said council has received some negative feedback about the sport, but no more than would be expected on, say, fighting in hockey, or allowing chickens to be kept in backyards.

She said MMA has changed considerably since the days when it had a reputation for extreme violence.

“The sport has done a lot to clean itself up since those days. They’ve put rules and safety procedures in place,” she said.

Council also wanted to look at the nature of the controlling bodies involved in international MMA.

“In boxing, there are oversight bodies that put rules in place and we have our own athletic commission,” Deal said, “but in MMA, it’s more of a marketing machine that runs things: a primary promoter, rather than a regulatory body.

“Some states have different rules, some require helmets, some allow certain hits, some don’t. So we wanted to get everything in place so that we didn’t overstep or put the city in a perilous liability position. We’re just making sure, when MMA is regulated, it’s done the right way.”

Deal agreed that not all of council has warmed to the MMA.

Coun. Ellen Woodsworth made clear at the March meeting she had no desire to see the sport approved, let alone holding events held in city-owned buildings.

“Within any group, there’s a spectrum of opinions,” Deal said, “but the mayor has been quite decisive on this. There’s a difference between having an opinion and making appropriate policy decisions. Sometimes you vote for things you don’t personally want because a majority clearly think differently.

“We’re fairly united on this.”

cparry@vancouversun.com
© Copyright (c) The Vancouver Sun
Source: Vancouver Sun
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  #52  
Old Posted Apr 14, 2009, 3:32 AM
EastVanMark EastVanMark is offline
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Coun. Ellen Woodsworth made clear at the March meeting she had no desire to see the sport approved, let alone holding events held in city-owned buildings.

Ellen Woodsworth; head nimby and chief idiot at City Hall
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  #53  
Old Posted Apr 14, 2009, 7:30 AM
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glad to hear the good news - at least, with regards to adding to the sports cultural here in vancouver =) UFC will be a hit here, just like it is in montreal. another sporting event added onto the sports scene. nice. can't wait for things to be made official, and finalized.
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  #54  
Old Posted Apr 14, 2009, 2:16 PM
LotusLand LotusLand is offline
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YES! Thanks for the update. I never understood why council would vote this money making event illegal. I mean THEY want to come here and we say NO!
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  #55  
Old Posted Apr 15, 2009, 4:43 PM
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Originally Posted by LotusLand View Post
YES! Thanks for the update. I never understood why council would vote this money making event illegal. I mean THEY want to come here and we say NO!
Yep. Crazy, isn't it? But it does happen, especially here in Metro Van. Some decisions that council makes, baffles me sometimes. sigh...but at least with regards to the UFC, they are letting the event come to the city. it's going to be huge. and another event that will put Vancouver on the sporting map. this is awesome for our city!
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  #56  
Old Posted Jul 15, 2009, 6:46 AM
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UFC Pencils in Vancouver Match Despite Ban


A mixed martial arts match will be held in Vancouver next June despite the city's current ban on the sport, announced Ultimate Fighting Championship's president over the weekend.

"Canada is the mecca of mixed martial arts right now," said UFC president Dana White at the UFC Fan Expo in Las Vegas.

Though the controversial sport is not regulated in British Columbia and Vancouver banned it in 2007, Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson gave his support Monday.

"We're hopeful we can resolve all this and host an event in 2010, but we still got some work to do," said Robertson.

Vancouver Coun. David Cadman opposes the event, saying the violent nature of the sport would require increased security downtown.

"I personally don't feel that the residents of Vancouver want to pay taxes to police this kind of event," said Cadman.

Paul Lazenby, a Vancouver-based Canadian mixed martial arts champion, says UFC would be an easy sell in the city.

"Vancouver is one of the top 10 cities per capita in the world for UFC pay-per-view buys. I can guarantee that if UFC comes to GM Place, it will sell out in an instant," said Lazenby.

He said new rules have boosted the sport's popularity.

"It is now as respectable a sport as boxing is. And it's really helped us to move the sport forward and divorce it from the old image of just two bar brawlers basically bashing each other to pieces in a cage," he said.http://www.cbc.ca/canada/british-col...tial-arts.html


Now all that is left to do is sit back and watch the folks at CAMBIE & 12 screw up this opportunity.
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  #57  
Old Posted Jul 15, 2009, 4:30 PM
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Originally Posted by EastVanMark View Post
UFC Pencils in Vancouver Match Despite Ban


A mixed martial arts match will be held in Vancouver next June despite the city's current ban on the sport, announced Ultimate Fighting Championship's president over the weekend.
Ugh... just what we need. One more reason for the inland and island hillbillies of BC to move here.
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  #58  
Old Posted Jul 15, 2009, 5:21 PM
LotusLand LotusLand is offline
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^ Thanks for stereotyping all UFC fans. I'm born and raised in Vancouver, live in Yaletown and let me tell you the bars are packed with non hillbillies lol. The amount of beautiful women that follow the sport in itself is amazing. The fan base does attract some undesirables, but guess what go to a B.C. Lions games and it looks like Surrey, to me that is just as undesirable, yet I still go and support the team whenever I can (even if they suck this year).

This is a good event that will attract lots of $$$ and just reaches out to another audience to highlight Vancouver.

Also you'd be surprised how many MMA schools, gyms and clinics operate in Vancouver and the lower mainland.
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  #59  
Old Posted Jul 15, 2009, 5:24 PM
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Originally Posted by EastVanMark View Post
"It is now as respectable a sport as boxing is
Way to shoot for the stars.
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  #60  
Old Posted Jul 16, 2009, 1:45 AM
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If they weren't able to make it in during the previous administration, I have a hard time believing they'll have anymore success under a council with a strong Cope presence.
I'd like to see UFC in town, but I'm doubtful it'll happen soon.
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