Banned in Boston
I was going to post a piece on Ultimate Fighting sometime before the pay-per-view on Saturday. I was going to talk about how far UFC has come since the early days, how much mixed martial arts has progressed as a sport, and how it has overcome its old stigma as a circus sideshow.
Then I log on today and see that my beloved hometown of Boston has once again overreacted to a situation and banned a mixed martial arts event scheduled for Saturday. And in the same manner in which UFC was subjected to a political witch hunt and banned in much of the country in the mid-1990s, the media reports that ran today are filled with misleading information and inaccuracies. Here's the AP report
The last graph of the AP story is terribly misleading. The death that occurred in Taunton last weekend was an accident in a traditional staged pro wrestling event, a small-time version of the type of shows Vince McMahon puts on. There's a huge difference between that and an actual combat sport, but it leaves a reader without in-depth knowledge of the sport with an impression that a death occurred on an MMA event in Boston just last week, which is not the case.
This mixed martial arts event in Boston was scheduled to take place at the Roxy. It was shut down despite being legally sanctioned by the Massachusetts state athletic commission. There is no history of major injuries or fan rioting in or around Boston at an MMA event.
There has, however, been a death in the ring in a boxing event. At the Roxy. Bobby Tomasello of Somerville died on Oct. 25, 2000, four days after collapsing in the Roxy dressing room after a fight that aired on ESPN2. Yet boxing shows continued at the Roxy without interruption.
Why would Patricia Malone, who is in charge of licensing in the city of Boston, ban an event with no history of unsafe condiitions, but allow events to continue when deaths have occurred?
I've called her office and gotten the run-around. I've followed up with an email. No reply yet. If I hear from them I'll let you know. In the interim, the message is: Sports that cause deaths are OK in Boston. Sports that don't get banned.
This isn't meant to pick on boxing either. I have tremendous respect for the sport of boxing and in particular the folks at Cappiello Promotions, who have done a great job keeping the sport alive on the grassroots ranks in the area and run the boxing shows at the Roxy. Boxers know the risk when they step in the ring.
But to ban one event out of fear of mayhem when boxing events continue is Bostonian hypocrisy at its worst.
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