Vancouver council to vote on mixed-martial-arts ban

A Vancouver-based mixed-martial-arts instructor says anyone who sits down to watch an Ultimate Fighting Championship bout on cable or via pay-per-view can expect “broken noses and arms torn inside out”.

Ritchie Yip, 33, told the Georgia Straight that such injuries are “inevitable” in MMA—a mix of boxing, jujitsu, and wrestling—but if he had his way, there would be live bouts in Vancouver.

“Ultimately, I would say yes, it should be allowed,” Yip, head instructor at the downtown-based InFighting Mixed Martial Arts Academy, said by phone. “There’s no reason why it should not be allowed.”¦It doesn’t make a huge difference for the local scene. You can go to North Van and see the fights. There can be smaller fights in Richmond and whatnot, and in Chilliwack. You can go to Victoria. It’s just Vancouver, in and of itself, that has banned mixed martial arts. It only makes a significant difference when it comes to [events in] large venues, such as the UFC [bouts].”

Yip said that if the UFC were to come to town, the only venues large enough for it would be GM Place and B.C. Place.

Vancouver city staffers have not taken a position on whether council should approve MMA events in the city. However, in a report going to council’s city services and budgets committee today (March 26), the assistant director of the licence and animal-control division, Tom Hammel, offers two options: that council not approve of the Vancouver Athletic Commission sanctioning MMA events, or that council approve the events, with conditions.

On March 24, COPE councillor Ellen Woodsworth told the Straight that she was looking forward to “hearing what they present to me”.

“But basically I think it’s not an appropriate sport for Vancouver,” she said. “I think that the things that detract from it, for me, are the liabilities to the city that are possibly involved if we accept bringing it in, the incredible policing costs that we will incur if we bring it in—and we can look at other cities where they have this—and, finally, I think you have to choose. Lots of different organizations want to have events in Vancouver, and for me this is not the kind of event that I think is a great inspiring sport that can bring fame and glory to the city of Vancouver.”

Langley-based Nick Ghaeni says martial-arts training helped him turn his life around, and he even credits it with getting him through high school—where, he said, he was “failing”—and through college in Montreal. Now friends and family must travel to Nanaimo in May if they want to catch him in action in his first serious bout.

“I’m in favour of it [MMA] coming to Vancouver, and I really want it to, but I know the city is probably leaning against it,” Ghaeni told the Straight. “They don’t want it. I don’t think there should be any problem. It’s one of the most popular sports in the world, and people in this city would love it. Vancouver could make a lot of money off of it.”

Ghaeni, who trains at a Langley gym, said some MMA fighters might “look a little crazy”. “But when you sit down and actually talk to these guys, they are like everyone else,” he said.”

Yip added that MMA “absolutely is a dangerous sport”. “That’s part of the draw,” he said. “Boxing is horrendously dangerous and so is hockey. There’s blood on the ice all the time, and as well assaults happen on the ice all the time, but people don’t go to jail because it’s considered okay. At least these guys going into the cage, they are like, ”˜Okay, I am going to get injured.’ At the end of the day, that’s what fighting is. It’s ”˜How am I going to injure this person sufficiently so that I can stay safe?’ That’s why martial arts was created.”

Scotty Jackson, president of the Boxing B.C. Association, said that “from a fan-base perspective, it [MMA] competes with the boxing world.” However, he told the Straight that he supports the sport coming to Vancouver.

“Absolutely,” Jackson confirmed by phone. “As an adult and as an individual, I think you should be able to do whatever you want—obviously, within reason.”

Yip said he knows what the consequences will be if Vancouver shuts the door on MMA.

“It will always happen, so even if they completely wiped it out of the city, it will still happen,” he said. “And even worse, if there was no venue in the Lower Mainland, it would go underground, which would be horrible. They would have them in warehouses.”

Yip noted that unsanctioned fights would be more dangerous for the fighters, as there would be no doctors and no drug testing.