The Boston City Council passed a resolution on Wednesday that will ban children under the age of 16 from attending MMA events without the supervision of a parent.
The ordinance originally introduced by Boston City Council president Stephen Murphy was an amended version of the resolution he tried to pass, which would have banned anyone under the age of 18 from attending the fight events.
The amended version presented in front of the Boston City Council on Wednesday changed the verbiage quite a bit after the original version had little chance of passing.
The new ordinance stated “children under the age of 16 years old be prohibited from attending live amateur and professional cage fighting events in the City of Boston unless accompanied by an adult.”
In his initial resolution, Murphy stated “extensive research has associated exposure to media violence with a variety of physical and mental health problems for children and adolescents, including aggressive and violent behavior, bullying, desensitization to violence, fear and depression. Studies have found that that repeatedly exposing children to violent media is a risk factor for increases in aggression later in life.”
The Boston City Council voted unanimously to pass the new law.
UFC president Dana White spoke out about the issues the promotion has had dealing with Murphy since announcing their return to Boston earlier this year.
White spoke out about Murphy last week while the UFC was in Boston promoting UFC Fight Night 26, which took place at the TD Garden Arena. (via USA Today)
This Murphy guy. You elect a politician to hopefully go out and bring in jobs, create revenue in your city, bring in events that bring revenue to your city. This guy comes out and he’s saying all this (bleeping) stuff like ’18 and under’ (not allowed at the event) and all this other stuff they’re doing to us. Then sure enough, this hearing, 25 of the Culinary Union members are there. And this guy busts out a video of Chael Sonnen talking about Anderson Silva in Brazil. First of all, this is the fight business. This isn’t the nice business. This is the fight business.
Murphy’s plan to stop anyone under the age of 18 failed, but he still got some kind of ordinance passed by the city although with much less impact than would have been felt by the previous order.
The UFC has not announced any current plans to return to Boston, but hinted that they would plan an event there again in the future.
The new law passed on Wednesday would cover any MMA promotion going to Boston, although clearly given the language of the bill mentioning “ultimate fighting” on numerous occasions, the resolution was aimed at only one organization—the UFC.
Damon Martin is a Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report
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