New York Governor Pledges Support for MMA in New Budget

I know, I know, I know, I know—you've heard it all before. Every new year someone tries to convince you that MMA is finally going to be legal in New York and every new year, despite your better judgment, you allow yourself to get your hopes up—like a fool—and the same thing happens: Your winter of optimism melts into a summer of discontent and the New York State Legislative session ends without so much as a peep about MMA. And you're left with nothing but the warmth of your delusions, the heat of your disappointment, the burn of your indignation, and a gnawing at your insides.

Well, I'm not going to sit here and promise you that things are going to be different this year. After all, the New York State Senate has voted seven years in a row to make MMA legal and seven years in a row the New York State Assembly has simply ignored them, failing to even bring an MMA bill to the floor, much less vote on it. And while MMA's greatest and most powerful enemy in the state, former Assembly Speaker Sheldon Silver, may be long gone from Albany, a convicted criminal looking at a possible lifetime in prison, and therefore no longer around to stop pro-MMA legislation from coming to a vote, Silver was out during last year's session as well, and what did that get us: a new pro-MMA speaker who said all the right things but in the end didn't bring an MMA bill to the floor for a vote. It's enough to make a person cynical about the American political process.

But embittered as your heart may be, know this: 2016 is starting off better for MMA than any year since the sport was banned by New York way back in 1997. Yesterday, Governor Andrew Cuomo released his annual Executive Budget proposal for 2016-17, and for the first time since he took office, that budget included support for MMA in New York State.

"New York is the only state in the nation that does not allow professional Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) contests," Cuomo's proposal reads. "Thousands of New Yorkers attend dozens of unregulated amateur MMA events in New York each year and unlicensed promoters organize and promote amateur MMA contests in all corners of New York State. The Governor seeks to authorize both amateur and professional MMA and will ensure that contests happen under either the supervision of the New York State Athletic Commission or an alternative authorized sanctioning entity. It will place firm controls on MMA, its participants and promoters that ensure the protection of fighters and fans."

This is huge news, not just because it solidifies Cuomo's support for MMA legalization and moves the issue front and center in the legislature's brand-new session (as opposed to being an afterthought like it was last year, when MMA proponents in the Assembly simply ran out of time before their constituents went on vacation), but because it means that if Cuomo's budget is approved by the legislature in March (and MMA legalization is just a tiny, and hopefully easily overlooked, part of an enormous 500-page, $145 billion proposal) the issue wouldn't even need an Assembly vote to become law. MMA would just get swept up in the broader budget legislative process and become legal in New York. With any luck, anti-MMA assemblymen and –women will be so focused on their issues with the governor's proposals related to the environment, affordable housing, minimum wage increases, etc., that they won't have the time, the energy, or the political will to make a fuss about something as comparatively insignificant as cage-fighting.

And thus MMA will slip into legal legitimacy through the back door of the legislative process. Not quite democracy at its finest, perhaps, but at this point MMA fans in New York are beyond caring.