Tag: Bob Reilly

BTW, NY State Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver Was Arrested on Corruption Charges Last Week


(“And for my next impression, I give you a fish taking a shit.” via The New York Post.)

While we here at Castle CagePotato have been in full blown crisis mode these past few days, there has actually been a lot going on in the MMA world worth talking about. Go figure, right? Most notably, perhaps, is that NY State Assembly and supervillian of MMA, Sheldon Silver, was arrested on corruption charges related to accepting millions of dollars in undisclosed income from an NYC lawfirm. And because I gave you my word that I’d start publishing you Taters if you wrote in, after the jump is one such hot taek on Silver’s arrest, via CP reader Mike Reilly. Enjoy!


(“And for my next impression, I give you a fish taking a shit.” via The New York Post.)

While we here at Castle CagePotato have been in full blown crisis mode these past few days, there has actually been a lot going on in the MMA world worth talking about. Go figure, right? Most notably, perhaps, is that NY State Assembly and MMA supervillian, Sheldon Silver, was arrested on corruption charges related to accepting millions of dollars in undisclosed income from an NYC lawfirm. And because I gave you my word that I’d start publishing you Taters if you wrote in, after the jump is one such hot taek on Silver’s arrest, via CP reader Mike Reilly. Enjoy and continue to #RallyforCagePotato!

Sheldon Silver Arrested for Millions in Bribes and Undisclosed Income

By Mike Reilly

Remember our old buddy Sheldon Silver? He’s that NY State Assembly crank who hates MMA the way grandmas hate computers. (“Spawn of the devil!” as my gam-gam always says. All because she doesn’t know how to send a photo as an attachment.)

In a stunning instance of Things We’ve Known for Years, The Daily News reported last week that Silver was arrested by the FBI for, get this, corruption!

For those of you who may not remember (and those who’ve tried hard to forget), the story goes like this: Every year, Dana and the Fertitta bros. try to appeal a state-wide ban on MMA in New York. And every year, a liver-spotted sack named Sheldon Silver tells them to go f*ck themselves, bureaucratically speaking.

As everybody knows, Silver’s disdain for MMA has nothing to do with MMA itself. The almighty Culinary Union has a beef with the Fertittas relating to their refusal to unionize their Station Casinos in New York and has had Silver drop the hammer on every MMA proposal for the past umpteen years, spiting Zuffa (and Bellator, and everybody else) while denying the state of NY a titload of event revenue.

Unfortunately, Silver’s arrest has nothing to do with the Culinary Union, which would have been a perfect “2 birds, 1 stone” scenario for us vindictive MMA fanboys. The 70-year old Silver was just re-elected to an 11th term a few months back, but now, he’s facing five felony charges related to fraud and extortion, each of which could mean up to 20 years in prison (or 10 more years than he has left on this earth). The charges allege that since the year 2000, Silver “used the power and influence of his official position to obtain for himself millions of dollars in bribes and kickbacks…”

The New York Post has some handy bullet points of the naughty things ol’ Sheldon has done. Among the allegations, Silver “took millions of dollars for legal work he did not do” and “directed state funds to a doctor who referred cases to another law firm that paid Mr. Silver fees.” If you’re a glutton for linguistic punishment, you can read the full complaint here.

So…ding-dong the witch is dead? Maybe.

The Speaker of the Assembly more or less decides which pieces of legislation get voted on. Silver’s been in that chair since 1994. He’s one of the most powerful men in the NY State government, and though Silver has agreed to step down while his arrest plays out, he will have a chance to reclaim his position if he beats the charges. And it just so happens that wealthy men and the justice system are not exactly natural enemies.

Plus, there are no clear frontrunners to take Silver’s place even if he was ousted, so there’s no guarantee that we’ll get someone with, you know, a little common sense. After all, before it was Sheldon Silver cock-blocking MMA, we had this guy Bob Reilly (no relation, btw), who you might recall was as uninformed about MMA as he was vehemently opposed to it.

As a New Yorker, I’ve been wishin’ and a-prayin’ for live MMA for a long time now.  I’m sick of going over to New Jersey to get my fix. (They have these scary orange guys with spiky hair and you get shot at if you say that Bon Jovi is “just OK”). But the absurdity that is the MMA ban in NY has come to feel like something that’s best put out of mind. Maybe I’ve just been burned too many times. Maybe I heard “Fedor coming to the UFC, for realz this time,” once too often. Maybe I’m all out of hope, is what I’m saying.

For all that Dana White has repeatedly said about being done trying with New York, you can bet that he and the boys will be calling a war council soon.

Give ‘em hell, fellas.  Just don’t expect me to hold my breath.

New York’s Professional MMA Ban Is Actually Posing a Health Crisis Now


(BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!)

Despite calling it my home for some 22 years, I have long since given up on the idea of MMA being legalized in New York. We’ve had the carrot dangled in front of us several times before, sure, but when push came to shove, the rug was always pulled out from under us thanks to what I can only describe as “bureaucratic big-whiggery bullshit.” I blame you for all of this, Bob Reilly, you rat-faced c*cksucker.

While the fight towards professional MMA legalization in NY rages on, there have been some small steps made over the years, mainly in the realm of amatuer MMA. Unfortunately, the lack of anything resembling regulation has created something of a health crisis, with athletes that have previously tested positive for everything from HIV to Hepatitis C flooding the state to compete in unsanctioned MMA and kickboxing matches after being banned from doing so in states with actual regulation. As Jim Genia wrote in a recent piece for Deadspin:

Nick Lembo, chief counsel for the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board and overseer of all things MMA in the Garden State, lays out the issue as straightforwardly as anyone could.

“There have been many contestants who have been banned from regulated combative sport in New Jersey because of subdural hematoma, hepatitis C, HIV, detached retinas, and other medical concerns who have competed freely in amateur MMA and kickboxing in New York under the direct supervision of state-approved sanctioning bodies, or at shows without such direct supervision,” he says.

He can’t name these athletes—New Jersey privacy laws and federal HIPAA regulations prevent that—but according to him, dozens of them have fought and bled in New York rings and cages.


(BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!)

Despite calling it my home for some 22 years, I have long since given up on the idea of MMA being legalized in New York. We’ve had the carrot dangled in front of us several times before, sure, but when push came to shove, the rug was always pulled out from under us thanks to what I can only describe as “bureaucratic big-whiggery bullshit.” I blame you for all of this, Bob Reilly, you rat-faced c*cksucker.

While the fight towards professional MMA legalization in NY rages on, there have been some small steps made over the years, mainly in the realm of amatuer MMA. Unfortunately, the lack of anything resembling regulation has created something of a health crisis, with athletes that have previously tested positive for everything from HIV to Hepatitis C flooding the state to compete in unsanctioned MMA and kickboxing matches after being banned from doing so in states with actual regulation. As Jim Genia wrote in a recent piece for Deadspin:

Nick Lembo, chief counsel for the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board and overseer of all things MMA in the Garden State, lays out the issue as straightforwardly as anyone could.

“There have been many contestants who have been banned from regulated combative sport in New Jersey because of subdural hematoma, hepatitis C, HIV, detached retinas, and other medical concerns who have competed freely in amateur MMA and kickboxing in New York under the direct supervision of state-approved sanctioning bodies, or at shows without such direct supervision,” he says.

He can’t name these athletes—New Jersey privacy laws and federal HIPAA regulations prevent that—but according to him, dozens of them have fought and bled in New York rings and cages.

The paradox is that this is happening because the state is the last holdout from a time when MMA was an underground sport, consigned to Indian reservations and foreign shores. New York banned professional MMA in 1997, at a time when it was more a Thunderdome-esque spectacle than anything else. It was probably the right thing to do; it was certainly what almost every other state was doing. When evolution took hold, though, transforming “two men enter, one man leaves” into a legitimate sport, legislators acknowledged the new reality. MMA is now legal and regulated throughout all of North America. 

In addition to the rampant, unregulated health problems that arise when no regulatory board is placed in charge of an increasingly-popular combat sport, the medical suspensions being placed on athletes in areas like Pennsylvania and New Jersey are all but impossible to uphold should a fighter simply choose to take his next fight in NY. This means the potential for multiple concussions sustained over short periods of time and the fatal health hazards that come with them.

“There’s no question it’s a problem,” says Greg Sirb, executive director of the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission. Like New Jersey, Pennsylvania has a vibrant amateur MMA scene that often sees New Yorkers showing up to throw down. Like New Jersey regulators, he can’t work with New York—ensuring, for instance, that fighters aren’t getting in the cage during the routine medical suspensions given to victims of knockouts—because there’s no one to work with.

“Once they fight here and we suspend them, I really have no way of knowing that’s being upheld,” he says.

“It’s very hard to know what you’re getting when you bring in a New York fighter,” says Sirb. “We don’t know if he’s been knocked out recently, we don’t know what his experience is. If I’m not comfortable with the kid, we just deny the fight. It’s not worth the risk for me as a regulator to say, ‘Come on in, you’re OK to fight.’ We’ll just deny the fight.”

Bernie Profato, executive director of the Ohio Athletic Commission, agrees about the reporting problem. “I don’t follow a fighter’s record and if they fight in New York, which is unregulated, no one would know if they fought because the results are never posted anywhere.”

Says Sirb of the situation in New York: “It’s simply a mess.”

And a mess that is currently causing way more complications than the actual legalization of MMA ever could. While some of the organizations putting on these events, like the World Kickboxing Association, are adequately funded and manned, how are the low-level organizations supposed to properly protect their fighters when they lack the proper governing bodies, or simply the bodies, to ensure that everything runs as smoothly and safely as possible?

Take the show sanctioned by the Muay Boran League in the Bronx last September, where a water bottle was left in the cage between rounds and stepped on by a fighter mid-fight. Or the PKF-sanctioned show in Deer Park last January, where a bout began with one of the fighters’ stools still in the cage. The same event, according to Genia, “was held in a catering hall, where the cage was elevated and so close to the ceiling that the taller fighters on the card were in danger of hitting their heads on a chandelier.”

For Christ’s sake, many of these unsanctioned, New York-based amatuer MMA events lack even the proper medical staff to assist the fighters in case of the most basic injuries, instead relying on “paramedics, acupuncturists, or calls to 911 operators.” Blood tests results are overlooked, documents are forged by coaches, and physicians are sometimes replaced by f*cking veterinarians cageside. It’s criminal negligence on a mass scale, except there are no laws in place to be broken, as Genia puts it.

Suffice it to say, New York has reached a point where the willful ignorance of its lawmakers (and the personal vendetta against the Fertitta brothers/Station Casinos spearheaded by the Culinary Union) could result in deaths. How long will it be before an amateur fighter dies at one of these unsanctioned events, like what happened in Michigan last year?

Check out Genia’s article in its entirety here.

–J. Jones

MMA Fighter and Iraq War Vet Foils Robbery With Rear Naked Choke [VIDEO]


(This despicable human cockfighting needs to stop.)

A schizophrenic man walks into a party store and tells the clerk he has a gun in his pocket and that he’ll use it if he doesn’t give him the money out of the register.

No, this isn’t the set-up to a corny joke, it’s what went down last Thursday in Grand Rapids, Michigan but that isn’t the remarkable part of the story; it’s what happened next that makes the robbery attempt much more interesting.

“I look at the cashier — I kind of know him, I come in there every day — I whispered to him, I mouthed to him, ‘Are you getting robbed right now?’ He said, ‘Yeah,’ like really scared,” recalls customer Zack Thome, an Army vet and current college student who also happened to be a trained MMA fighter.


(This despicable human cockfighting needs to stop.)

A schizophrenic man walks into a party store and tells the clerk he has a gun in his pocket and that he’ll use it if he doesn’t give him the money out of the register.

No, this isn’t the set-up to a corny joke, it’s what went down last Thursday in Grand Rapids, Michigan but that isn’t the remarkable part of the story; it’s what happened next that makes the robbery attempt much more interesting.

“I look at the cashier — I kind of know him, I come in there every day — I whispered to him, I mouthed to him, ‘Are you getting robbed right now?’ He said, ‘Yeah,’ like really scared,” recalls customer Zack Thome, an Army vet and current college student who also happened to be a trained MMA fighter.


(Video courtesy of TinyPic Fox17)

Without hesitating, Thorne lunged at the robber, slapping on a rear-naked choke and taking him to the ground, where he held him until police arrived and arrested the 38-year-old who was recently released from jail.

“It’s kind of my hometown.  I live right next to the place, you know, I’m in there everyday.  I think if it was the other way around, if I worked there and the guy at the register was there, he would have done the same thing,” said Thome,

It’s ironic that a sport deemed by vehement opponents like Bob Reilly as being a terrible spectacle that civilized society could do without, has contributed to the thwarting of a handful of robberies and at least one homicidal rampage in the last couple years.

 

Wyoming to Create First Ever MMA-Only Commission Starting July 1st


(Pictured: Wyoming’s remaining residents react to the great news.) 

After becoming the 45th state (we’re looking at you, New York) to regulate mixed martial arts last Thursday, when current Governor Matt Mead signed House Bill 87 into law, Wyoming will become the first state to assemble a commission focused entirely on MMA. As we know, boxing and athletic commissions carry this responsibility in many of the states that have legalized MMA, and this is where Wyoming ran into trouble in the first place. In the past ten years, state lawmakers have attempted to reinstate the position of State Boxing Commissioner, who would then be placed in charge of MMA regulation, five separate times, but were met with overwhelming opposition from the state’s boxing industry.

The bill to legalize the sport was unanimously approved on Thursday by Wyoming State Senate and House of Representatives, and though MMA was never dubbed “illegal” in Wyoming, all fights held within the state until this point were not recognized on fighter’s records due to a lack of a sanctioning body to regulate the sport.

Now here’s where things get interesting: the committee will consist of three individuals appointed by Gov. Mead and will be funded by a five percent tax on gross receipts from all MMA events. This stipulation apparently has local promoters and fighters up in arms, fearing that the tax will discourage big name promotions like the UFC from visiting the state. Because, you know, Wyoming was next on Dana White’s agenda after he figured out this whole “international takeover” thing. Wyoming hosts an average of 20 mixed martial arts events a year, with the average crowd holding strong at around 500-700 attendees. Local fight promoter Stephen Alley told the Casper Star-Tribune that he believes this additional fee will crush the already depleted MMA scene, telling the publication in an interview that, “If they bring in a commission, most of the people that you see operating right now, they won’t be around.”

(Pictured: Wyoming’s remaining residents react to the great news.) 

After becoming the 45th state (we’re looking at you, New York) to regulate mixed martial arts last Thursday, when current Governor Matt Mead signed House Bill 87 into law, Wyoming will become the first state to assemble a commission focused entirely on MMA. As we know, boxing and athletic commissions carry this responsibility in many of the states that have legalized MMA, and this is where Wyoming ran into trouble in the first place. In the past ten years, state lawmakers have attempted to reinstate the position of State Boxing Commissioner, who would then be placed in charge of MMA regulation, five separate times, but were met with overwhelming opposition from the state’s boxing industry.

The bill to legalize the sport was unanimously approved on Thursday by Wyoming State Senate and House of Representatives, and though MMA was never dubbed “illegal” in Wyoming, all fights held within the state until this point were not recognized on fighter’s records due to a lack of a sanctioning body to regulate the sport.

Now here’s where things get interesting: the committee will consist of three individuals appointed by Gov. Mead and will be funded by a five percent tax on gross receipts from all MMA events. This stipulation apparently has local promoters and fighters up in arms, fearing that the tax will discourage big name promotions like the UFC from visiting the state. Because, you know, Wyoming was next on Dana White’s agenda after he figured out this whole “international takeover” thing. Wyoming hosts an average of 20 mixed martial arts events a year, with the average crowd holding strong at around 500-700 attendees. Local fight promoter Stephen Alley told the Casper Star-Tribune that he believes this additional fee will crush the already depleted MMA scene, telling the publication in an interview that, “If they bring in a commission, most of the people that you see operating right now, they won’t be around.”

But according to UFC Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Marc Ratner, we could be seeing a Fight Night type event at Wyoming in the near future, stating, “We’re not going to bring a major pay-per-view there, but we can certainly do a smaller event.” Oh, the optimism.

If you recall, the UFC hasn’t held an event in Wyoming since UFC 6, which saw Tank Abbott score his infamous rigor mortis KO over John Matua, the first ever Superfight Championship bout between Ken Shamrock and Dan Severn, and the allegedly fixed fight between Oleg Taktarov and Anthony Macais.

On a positive note, the addition of a MMA focused board will surely help improve things like fighter safety, and help rid Wyoming of so called “shady” promoters (now we’re looking at you, Alabama) that have damaged the name of the sport over the past few years. When the legislation takes effect on June 1st, the commission will quickly begin to collaborate with other athletic commissions such as the Colorado Boxing Commission and set up new rules and regulations to further the sport, starting with the current lack of HIV and other disease-related testing fighters currently do not have to undergo in order to compete. Also on the agenda will be the addressing the lack of insurance many of the smaller promotions neglect to provide to their fighters, a notion that Wyoming based MMA trainer Jerry Davis said would “make sure that some of these individuals in the past who were, for lack of a better term, shady wouldn’t be in this industry and giving it a bad name and causing harm to those individuals who are fighting.”

In another bit of great news, it appears that long time NY State Assemblyman and renowned ignoramus Bob Reilly will be stepping down from his position after serving four consecutive terms in office. We have long lamented about this man’s uneducated dissection of the sport here at CP, and couldn’t be happier to see him off to greener pastures ie. retirement and staying as far away from the sport of MMA as humanly possible. Reilly claims that he will be backing the candidacy of “long time friend” and civil servant Kevin Frazier, who will be launching a campaign in the forthcoming weeks. Fantastic.

-J. Jones

Dana White on MMA in New York: “I Guarantee It’s Going to Happen This Year.”


(Oh, you DID NOT just deny my Facebook friend request, Reilly.)

In an interview given to MMAFightCorner, Dana White didn’t beat around the bush when discussing the possibility of finally legalizing mixed martial arts in New York. If you recall, the UFC recently filed a law suit against New York, claiming that the “Empire State” was in breach of their first amendment rights to peacefully assemble. Specifically, Zuffa lawyers have been attempting to prove that mixed martial arts is a form of entertainment, like any other sport, and therefore cannot be criminalized.

Well, it seems we may have finally reached the mountaintop, so to speak, as the UFC President seems more than confident that 2012 will be the year that New Yorkers near and far will finally be able to sit down and watch MMA from somewhere other than their couches:

We’re so close. It’s going to happen, and I guarantee you it’s going to happen this year. It’s going to depend on when it happens, timing and everything else, but obviously, it would be nice to go in there with, probably, Jon Jones.


(Oh, you DID NOT just deny my Facebook friend request, Reilly.)

In an interview given to MMAFightCorner, Dana White didn’t beat around the bush when discussing the possibility of finally legalizing mixed martial arts in New York. If you recall, the UFC recently filed a law suit against New York, claiming that the “Empire State” was in breach of their first amendment rights to peacefully assemble. Specifically, Zuffa lawyers have been attempting to prove that mixed martial arts is a form of entertainment, like any other sport, and therefore cannot be criminalized.

Well, it seems we may have finally reached the mountaintop, so to speak, as the UFC President seems more than confident that 2012 will be the year that New Yorkers near and far will finally be able to sit down and watch MMA from somewhere other than their couches:

We’re so close. It’s going to happen, and I guarantee you it’s going to happen this year. It’s going to depend on when it happens, timing and everything else, but obviously, it would be nice to go in there with, probably, Jon Jones.

Let us be the first to say, it’s about fucking time. In June, the New York State Senate voted an overwhelming 42-18 to pass Bill S.1707-A, which would legalize the sport once and for all. This came after a similar bill was passed in the NY Assembly Committee with a vote of 14-6 back in 2009, all at the disgust of NY State Assemblyman Bob Reilly, who may or may not have received campaign contributions for his efforts to kill the bill before it gained any steam *cough* he did *cough*. Since then, several NY legislators have come forward in favor of legalizing the sport, including Buffalo Senator Mark Grisanti, who stated that it would not only help create jobs in a stagnant market, but could help boost tourism, being that New York is just an earshot away from Toronto.

And bringing in a guy like Jon Jones, who is not only a native of the state (he was born in Rochester), but a near guarantee in terms of putting on an exciting fight, seems like the best move for the UFC. But although DW seems confident, which by all means he should, we are going to hold off on our celebrations, because if history has proved one thing, it’s that it only takes one misinformed d-bag to ruin a party, also known as the Andy Dick Effect.

-Danga 

UFC Gets Backing from NY State Senators in Legalization Push Ahead of 2012 Assembly Session Start in Jan.

(Video courtesy of WNY)

New York State Assembly isn’t scheduled to resume until January, but that isn’t stopping politicians in the Empire State from rallying for legalizing mixed martial arts when the next session starts.

Several senators and assembly members have spoken out publicly in support of the sport in recent weeks, which could bring the issue to the forefront when Assembly is back in session in two months.


(Video courtesy of WNY)

New York State Assembly isn’t scheduled to resume until January, but that isn’t stopping politicians in the Empire State from rallying for legalizing mixed martial arts when the next session starts.

Several senators and assembly members have spoken out publicly in support of the sport in recent weeks, which could bring the issue to the forefront when Assembly is back in session in two months.

Buffalo Senator Mark Grisanti, who met with UFC chairman and CEO Lorenzo Fertitta yesterday, says that it’s ridiculous that New York is dragging its feet when it comes to sanctioning the sport that is regulated in all but a handful of states in the U.S. and less than a half dozen Canadian provinces. Grisanti pointed to the economic benefits of having MMA in the state, noting that it could create jobs and inject an influx of cash into the New York economy as one of the big reasons for giving the popular combat sport the nod.

“Being that we’re so close to Toronto and southern Ontario, I would suspect that we would get a lot of that draw from our neighboring country [as well],” Grisanti explained.

You might recall that the bill stalled out before it could reach a final vote because the 2011 Assembly session ended before one could take place. Some argue that the opponents of the bill dragged their feet in pushing the process along to prevent a vote from happening, but it’s unlikely they will be able to put off the inevitable next year. Let’s just hope that voting members will look at the big picture and not take douchebag Assemblyman Bob Reilly’s word at face value, considering he received campaign contributions from the culinary union — you know, the group that’s been trying to shut down the UFC because they don’t like the fact that the Fertittas won’t allow their Station Casino workers to unionize.