It seemed like things were going great as far as sanctioning mixed martial arts in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, but it seems like the situation is still completely murky. Despite a very successful UFC fight card, the city still has provincial sanctioning issues, and a lack of support from the Vancouver Athletic Commision. Couple this with very high insurance, and it’s hard to imagine the UFC returning any time soon. MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani spoke with The Score’s Paul Lazenby who had some very interesting thoughts on whether any backlash was occuring after UFC 115:
The only backlash following UFC 115 is that of the Vancouver fanbase against the municipal government. The event couldn’t have gone better. I spoke with members of the Vancouver Police Department and they told me that there were no problems inside the arena, and nothing on the streets afterward that they wouldn’t have encountered on a normal Saturday night. However, city council is grasping at straws, trying to find anything negative to justify blocking further events. Councilor Kerry Jang said of an incident of gay-bashing that happened in the general vicinity of the arena: ‘There was an issue of a beating — unrelated to UFC, but the perception was there.’ In my opinion, the local government is going to continue with its old, cowardly practice of making excuses to conduct further ‘evaluations’ and ‘risk assessments’ so that they can back-burner MMA forever without ever having to actually say ‘no.’
It seems almost archaic that sanctioning is an issue for mixed martial arts, especially when the business model makes the host cities so much revenue, but be that as it may it could be some time before we no longer have these situations occuring.