At a Vancouver Sun live chat tonight, UFC fighter Denis Kang answered a ton of questions candidly and honestly, including one about what he thought of the Rua/Machida decision that brought about an interesting answer.

I think Rua CLEARLY won that fight. THat was a huge mistake on the judge's part. I dont know if it was corruption or human error but it was wrong nonetheless .... I think Machida was off from the get-go. IMO he seemed a little intimidated and stressed by the pressure. Winning a title and defending one are two different things.

Kang went on to discuss his thoughts on a range of issues.

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UPDATE 2: The Vision Vancouver-led council heard a ton of arguments in support of MMA regulation, including from their own athletic commission, then ducked the issue entirely.

Dr Rajindar Sandhu, a member of the Vancouver Athletic Commission was visibly angry at the decison.

"I am literally pissed at this," he said. "This council does not want to make a decision. I think if we come back with the information they want, they are going to just table it again."

Council asked for a bunch more 'studies' to be done and asked for the provincial govt to take the issue over. One wonders why they're happy to let someone else tell them whether MMA can happen in their own buildings, rather than control the issue themselves. The only possible reason could be they don't want to be the ones to approve 'ultimate fighting'..

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Update 1 on the Vancouver MMA regulation vote - Jeff Lee at the Vancouver Sun has got Suzanne Anton, one of the councilors who will make the ultimate call on MMA, to confirm she's in the pro-regulation camp.

“The sport has come a long way in self regulation,” Anton said in a press release. “And with additional regulation by the Vancouver Athletic Commission (VAC), I am confident these events can be relatively safe.”

Anton said mixed martial arts events draw huge crowds and could be a good economic driver for Vancouver. “A lot of people love this sport,” she said. “You could fill GM Place with one of the events.”

Anton is a member of the NPA, which ran council when they de-regulated MMA in '07, so this is a positive shift. I know at least two other councilors are also leaning pro-regulation, so we're in good shape. Should know more in the coming hours.

Word from the meeting says council is giving the sport the jaundiced eye at the moment, but their own athletic commission, the owners of the local Vancouver Canucks NHL stadium, city staff and local MMA trainers are putting up a strong fight.

Jeff Lee's article above has been updated with details.

Promoted to the front page from the FanPosts by Luke Thomas.

The media in Vancouver has been buzzing for the past week as the local council prepares to decide whether to move towards MMA regulation or spin off into some hand-wringing NIMBY wonderland.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried the latter might win out, but if it does, it won't be because of the media in this town. It's pretty clear that there's a lean towards welcoming MMA and the money, etc that follows.

Anyhoo, today the UFC's Marc Ratner, VP of regulatory affairs, gets the op-ed page in the Vancouver Sun - the paper of record in Van city.

He makes a good pitch:

In these tough economic times, I would be remiss if I didn’t touch on the economic impact a UFC event brings to a city. As an example, on April 18 we will be holding an event in Montreal’s Bell Centre, our second show in that venue. 18,000 tickets were sold two months in advance of the show - our second sell-out there in twelve months - which generated $4.6 million in ticket revenue. We’ve been told by the Bell Centre that over half of that crowd comes from outside Montreal, so the economic benefit for local businesses can be anywhere from $6 to $8 million alone for a single three-hour event.

And this isn’t a situation where the UFC comes in for one night, makes some money and leaves, never to be heard from again. We’re looking to build a sport in Vancouver, and anywhere else we go. In the last couple of years, as well as the province of Quebec, we’ve added London, Dublin, Belfast, Manchester, Birmingham, and Newcastle to the list of international cities that have welcomed the UFC locally. We will be visiting Germany in June, and close to 40 states in the United States have sanctioned the sport in the last decade, including the two states considered to be the capitals for professional combat sports, Nevada and New Jersey.

MMA is a great international sport that I am privileged to be associated with, and we would love to bring it to Vancouver so fight fans here can experience it for themselves.MMA is a great international sport that I am privileged to be associated with, and we would love to bring it to Vancouver so fight fans here can experience it for themselves.

Will the Pacific Northwest open up to the UFC? We should know more Thursday afternoon.

Feel free to visit the link above and post your thoughts.

Promoted to the front page from the FanPosts by Luke Thomas.

Hey all. So I write for a newspaper up here in Vancouver Canada, and over the past year I've managed to convince my editors that MMA is worth supporting.

At first it was tough. I was told it was 'too tacky' and that newspaper readers aren't interested in such pursuits. So I kind of... uh... broke the rules.

I came in one Saturday night and put an article about a UFC event on the paper's website, then snuck out..

Well, it's been a big success since. Last year, 4 of the top 10 most visted articles across the entire chain of newspapers were our MMA pieces. Now I get calls from corporate asking if I'll be covering an event because, and I quote "we're relying on this stuff.."

Much success, high five.

But all was not well in Van land, as the local council (and it's municipalities that have to regulate combat sports up here) was a little scared that MMA events might be a liability nightmare, so they de-regulated the sport here in Sept. 2007.

Today, this is finally looking like it might change.

Behold, the culmination of a year of pushing: I called every Mayor and a ton of local councilors and asked them, "Okay, what's your problem with MMA?", then I called every local fighter, trainer, promoter - and Marc Ratner at the UFC (who is the nicest guy in the world) and John Prisco at the XFC (also a great guy) - to answer those questions.

And my bosses, who run a legacy 'paper of record' in this town, gave me a full page to work with.

A selection follows:

[Richmond councilor] Bill McNulty: "I would want to see a proposal. I personally have seen it on TV and turned it off, but that's me personally. I'd want to see a proposal of what the whole program would entail."

Marc Ratner: "I would fly to Vancouver immediately with some of our other people if any commission needed our help to sort through the process. We'd be there in a second. In fact, I'd be there Thursday but unfortunately I'll be in Toronto that day talking to their commission. ... Today I talked to Philadelphia, Phoenix, they're all saying, 'When are you coming?' The answer is, invite us out and we'll be there -- no question."

John Prisco: "When Tennessee was thinking about approving MMA, they had no idea how to do it. They didn't know insurance, rules, equipment, so we flew up and spent a week with them, working through the details. Once they had a handle on it, they regulated and we not only ran a show weeks later that drew 5000 people, but we also set up a permanent gymnasium there to help the locals learn about the sport, train in it, and make it part of their daily lives. We don't just want to hold an event and make a bit of money, when we come to town, we're looking to stay and build an industry around it. You spend a lot of money marketing to a city population, it doesn't make sense to spend all that and never come back. So whatever a local commission needs as far as advice and help, we'll make the time.

 

Sun reader EastVanDude: "I shudder to think what sort of impact this sort of activity will have on kids. Fighting in a cage - it's like Thunderdome."

Adam Ryan, trainer/fighter at Vancouver's Dynamic MMA: "A lot of our clientele now is high schoolers, a huge amount of them. I've worked with some people who might, as teenagers have had troubled pasts who are now living really clean lives, stopped getting in trouble. Had parents telling me, 'Thank you so much, my kid isn't getting in trouble any more with all the time and energy he's putting in at the club.' The Vancouver Canucks have sent their prospects to train with us for the last two years. It instils discipline and people are surprised to hear it teaches you restraint."

Bill Mahood: "People get obsessed by the cage, but it really isn't a 'two men enter, one man leaves' thing at all. If you've ever seen MMA in a boxing ring, you're constantly having fighters get tangled in ropes, even spill out of the ring. You have to keep restarting the fight, it really becomes a hurdle to having a good fight. The cage gives you something you can lean against, roll up against, and not worry about it. It keeps the action in the middle. It's a little harder to watch live, unfortunately, but it's there for a good reason that pertains to the sport, not to keep people from escaping."

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From the comments a few weeks back:

I'm guessing Todd Steverson goes to Sac-Town

He's marched through the system like a prospect player, and he's had good success along the way.

And if the A's keep Robnett around, all the more reason, since Steverson has managed him at every level and should be due a shift to AAA by now.

Nailed it.

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In the Moneyball era, the A's were considered big on OBP and college players, because they were undervalued by other teams.

Eventually other teams caught on and they changed tack. So then came the big defense and high school pitchers era, because they were things considered undervalued by other teams.

Eventually other teams caught on and again the A's changed tack - but where can one find value in a market already aware of what you're trying to pull off?

Injuries, that's where.

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I was looking over the massive DL list just now, and it struck me that as bad as the following is:

Chris Denorfia - 60-day DL
Justin Duchscherer - 15-day DL
Rich Harden - 15-day DL
Bobby Kielty - 60-day DL
Mark Kotsay - 60-day DL
Esteban Loaiza - 60-day DL
Mike Piazza - 15-day DL
Chris Snelling - 15-day DL
Huston Street - 15-day DL

...when you add in the players that are injured but still playing (or not injured enough to be DLed), the situation gets insane.

Nick Swisher
Milton Bradley (still!)
Travis Buck (two injuries!)
Eric Chavez (a two-year old injury!)
Connor Robertson (after just two MLB innings!)

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So by now you'd have to be an Anaheim fan not to have heard that certain players plan to wear Jackie Robinson's long-retired #42 to celebrate the 60th anniversary of his breaking the color barrier.

Ken Griffey Jr thought it up, and now other players (such as Oakland's Milton Bradley) plan to do likewise. The Dodgers are even tossing around having their whole team wear the #42.

So what did Anaheim Angel Garret Anderson have to say about wearing #42 when it was offered to him a week ago?

'Not gonna happen.'

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I posted this on Notes From the Nat tonight, and it seems to me that the natural place to cross-post it is here:

It's time that A's fans started getting together some blog coverage for our minor league teams.

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A quick look down the recent diaries thread right now will make you ask yourself a very odd question: Is this an A's FAN SITE?

Even odder, the answer to that question at the moment is 'no'. And that, good people, is abso-fricking-lutely insane.

I see goofballs posting diaries suggesting Billy Beane should have sent Swisher to the DL instead of Johnson. I see diaries talking about how there's nothing to like in the current A's team, and it was all so much better when we had Stairs and Berroa. I see people bitching that they're "losing patience" with this team.

Well I have just one thing to say - we, the Oakland Athletics, with injuries galore, no money, precious few fans showing up to games, a depleted AAA team, and slumps aplenty, is still in...

FIRST PLACE!

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There's been much gnashing of teeth in Athletic Town over the past week, and we may well be getting to the point where some require a trip to the dentist as a result.

Woe is us, we lost another.

Woe is us, we have injuries.

Woe is us, the playoffs are all but an impossibility.

Well, good people of Oakville, I've had enough. I'm about to unload a can of whup-de-doop on your asses, and you're about to shut up, sit down, and soak it all in. Here's the crib notes version: We're doing just groovy. Here's why.

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