MMA Rally in Queens Park Toronto
Legalizing Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) in Ontario has been an ongoing battle but Primer Dalton McGuinty says that legalizing the sport isn’t at the top of his governments priority list.
MMA supporters gathered at Queens Park in Toronto to hopefully show the McGuinty government why the sport should be legal in the province of Ontario.
Some of the key MMA personalities and fighters spoke at the rally like Carlos Newton who is a former UFC champion, Joe Ferraro who is the voice of MMA Connected, Mark Hominick who has competed in the UFC and now competes in the WEC, and of course Jeff Joslin who is a well known name in the Martial Arts world in Hamilton, who also has competed in the UFC.
They all argued what bringing MMA to Ontario can do for a city like Toronto. They believe that something like a UFC card can generate tens of millions of dollars in any city its held in.
For the fighters, it comes down to fighting in front of thousands of MMA fans in their hometown in their own province.
“MMA contains some of the most athletically gifted athletes in the world, with Ontario holding many of these,” said Mark Hominick.
Although the rally was a great idea to promote and persuade the McGuinty government the crowd looked a little bit thin. My unofficial count of people who came out to support the cause couldn’t be anymore then 140 people.
Toronto Sun Columnist Steve Bufferycommented in his column about how the message MMA supporters at the rally hoped to send to the Ontario government probably backfired. He also says that the McGuinty government can use the rally’s turn out to argue that support for the sport in this province isn’t burning.
Buffery also goes on to say “the fact is, the rally was a disappointment.”
Like Buffery says in his column despite the crowd being thin at Queens Park support for MMA in Ontario continues to be huge.
I think that the numbers might have been better if popular Canadian fighters like Georges St. Pierre and Patrick Cote were amongst the crowd. The UFC has many known Canadian Fighters from all over Canada. Although this is the fight to have MMA in Ontario, I think its important to remember when trying to put rally’s like this together that the average joe associates MMA with the UFC.
