The Pro Mixed Martial Arts Movement in North America (PMNA) is a volunteer organization which encompasses all of North America and consists of a large number of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fans. Since late 1993, when the most popular and successful MMA event to date, the Ultimate Fighting Championships (UFC), started the MMA trend in North America, the sport of MMA has been under attack by the media, government, cable and Pay Per View (PPV) providers.

This press release document is an attempt by the PMNA to educate the public, media, and government of the current situation regarding MMA in North America. MMA, and events like the UFC, are victims of ignorance and political bureaucracy. Our main goal is to eliminate the misconceptions that surround the sport of MMA and allow it a fair chance to grow and prosper in North America.

Please take the time to read through this document and learn about the great sport of MMA.

Martial Arts (MA) have been practiced for thousands of years. Many traditional ones include Kung Fu, Karate, Tae Kwon Do and Judo. These arts were taught for defense from thieves, rivaling clans, and oppressive rulers. Competitions within these traditional arts are still being hosted today to allow students to test their current skills against each other. MA is known for discipline and respect, which are displayed in current MMA competitions.

MMA competition is not a "new sport". Having traditional roots as previously mentioned, MMA competition also includes a recent and current history - having safely been held over the past 70 years in Brazil and Japan! MMA is experiencing the evolution that many other sports have undergone in addressing the issues of athletes and the sport itself.

MMA events were introduced to North America in September of 1993 via a PPV event entitled the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC). The event was considered a "no holds barred" tournament with rules in the first few UFC's only prohibiting eye gouging, biting, and groin attacks. The referee's role was not as significant as it has become in the present UFC events. The UFC proved to be a successful PPV event and later the Extreme Fighting Championship (EFC) was created to compete for a piece of the MMA PPV market. Soon MMA events were competing with the Professional Wrestling circuit for PPV buy rates and the future of MMA events was starting to look very promising.

The MMA world was delivered a blow when Viewers Choice Canada (VCC) unexpectedly stopped broadcasting MMA events on their PPV service in 1996. UFC 8 was the last event aired by VCC. This was a major loss for the UFC, EFC and MMA fans across Canada. Another hit in 1997 was the censorship of MMA events by the two biggest cable companies in the United States of America (USA): Time Warner (TW) and Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI). The promising future started to fade for MMA. The public, which governments claim to represent and cable companies claim to serve, has not voiced opposition to the UFC. In fact, the opposite has been true: many frustrated fans have contacted PPV companies expressing their disappointment in their UFC ban and demonstrated its support. With only the smaller cable companies in the USA and satellite services left carrying MMA events, the EFC went out of business in 1997. The UFC hung on to battle the censorship and is still doing so today.

The governments of Canada and the USA have also caused problems in the past for MMA events. Semaphore Entertainment Group (SEG), the producers of the UFC, had to relocate the UFC show twice due to political pressure and banishment of their event. The nature of significant opposition was being learned: self-serving interests. Senator John McCain, one of the biggest anti-MMA activists, has helped ban MMA events from New York and Arizona. His ties to "Budweiser Beer" (a major boxing supporter) indicate a conflict of interest in his quest to eliminate MMA events from competing for a piece of the PPV combat (boxing) market. The International Fighting Championships (IFC) had their event sanctioned by the Tennessee government and then only 3 days before the event their sanctioning was revoked and the event was cancelled. In Kahnawake, Quebec, the Canadian government stepped in and arrested almost all of the participants in the EFC 2 event. This was a shock to the MMA world and demonstrated the anti-MMA stance the government was starting to take against MMA events.

Despite the fact that the public has not objected to MMA events certain government officials are still maintaining their anti-MMA stance and banning a sport that has an injury record similar to that of high school football. Instead of government officials trying to ban MMA events from their state or province, why don't they sanction and regulate the events to insure the safety of the participants? The province of Quebec, in Canada, with the assistance and pressure of the IFC recently started to sanction MMA events and hopefully more government officials will follow their lead and try to get MMA events legalized instead of abolished.

The cable companies of Tele-Communications Inc. (TCI) and Time Warner (TW) stated they are not currently showing the UFC because "it's too violent" and "we're trying to keep our programming geared towards family entertainment". If a sporting event which displays true athleticism and sportsmanship is not within their boundaries of validation, how can they allow pornography, Professional Wrestling (WWF/WCW), Boxing and violent movies to continue to be broadcast on their systems? Considering MMA events are only shown on PPV, which means you must pay to watch them, why not let the public decide whether or not they wish to watch the events? TCI and TW stated they would start showing the UFC again on their cable systems if SEG applied additional rules to their event. SEG complied with the cable companies and added the new rules to their UFC event but still to this day the cable companies have not honored their part of the bargain.

Viewers Choice (VC), of the USA, recently stopped broadcasting the UFC soon after TCI became majority stockowners of the company. TCI continues to operate with its cable monopoly mentality.

Recent developments indicate that the understanding of the sport and acceptance of the UFC and other MMA events is increasing:

• As mentioned previously, the IFC was recently sanctioned and held an event in Quebec, Canada, on May 30, setting a significant precedent for MMA in Canada.
• The MMA event based in Hawaii, "Super Brawl", held it's first show since it's ban a year ago, returning with some rule changes to comply with the concerns of the government.
• On August 1, 1998 a MMA event, Super Brawl 7, was aired for the first time on a major TV network - NBC affiliate station KUAM channel 8 in Guam! KUAM has committed to airing future Super Brawl events.
• Talks between SEG and VCC have been ongoing since VCC ceased their broadcasting of the UFC and presently VCC is considering adding the UFC to their 1999 budget.
• Aldelphia Cable, the 8th largest cable company in the U.S., ended their ban of the UFC broadcasting the July 17th UFC event and will continue to broadcast future UFC events.
• "The Sports Network (TSN)", Canada's ESPN equivalent, now broadcasts a MMA-related show called "Full Contact Fighter". It is hosted by one of Canada's most popular sports journalists and talk show hosts (Michael Landsberg of "Off the Record"), along with co-host Joel Gold.
• In October of 1999 the Canadian French-language sports channel, RDS, will start broadcasting the IFC's syndicated events.

With the recent dropping of the UFC from Viewers Choice (USA), SEG (the producers of the UFC) will act as it's own PPV provider starting with the "UFC Brazil" show on October 16, 1998. Various cable companies are now able to receive and air the UFC again. The companies recently added are: Avenue Cable (Ventura, CA), Garden State Cable (Cherry Hill, NJ), Media General Company (Virginia), Prime Cable (Las Vegas, NV), Insight Communications (Columbus, OH), Suburban Cable (NJ, PN, DE), Media One (CA) and Cox Cable (San Diego, CA).

The PMNA aims to encourage this trend and hopes that the censorship and banishment of MMA events in North America continues to dissolve to reflect the growing support and understanding of the sport.

There is doubt and speculation about MMA being a real sport. A "sport", as defined in the dictionary, is "an athletic activity requiring skill or physical prowess and often of a competitive nature." According to the definition, MMA competition is definitely a sport. However, it is realized that this is a broad and simplistic definition of sport. Certain other aspects, just as significant, also make a sport: safety and ethics, both of which anti-MMA proponents feel and claim is lacking with MMA events. A close look at the sport will prove this view to be an uninformed and inaccurate one.

Basically, MMA is combative competition that combines and allows techniques from many martial art disciplines and combative sports (some of which are included in the Olympics) such as Judo, Karate, Western Boxing, Kung Fu, Wrestling, Kickboxing, etc. This is not brawling or "street fighting". The sport requires and consists of martial art technique and skill that demands regular study and training as with any other sport or competition. There are many rules and regulations in place to govern the actions of the participants ensuring safe and legitimate combat. Comparing MMA events like the UFC to "human-cockfighting" is unfair and insulting.

Rules and regulations are enforced by promoters and referees to make MMA events as safe as possible. Much of the worry of MMA being so violent and dangerous comes from the apparent and relative lack of rules and restrictions of what moves and actions are allowed. Ironically, this is what makes the sport just as safe and even safer than other sports! Examination of the sport and comparisons can help illustrate this.

Boxing will be used to compare and contrast because of its familiarity and general acceptance as a combat sport. Boxing is a pure, uni-discipline combat style, employing only striking techniques by gloved fists on very limited targets (torso and head). The objective in boxing is to deliver punches to the opponent enough to ideally "knock-out" an opponent or land the most punches to dominate an opponent to win a match. This is the only way to win; to basically pummel your opponent with the most devastating punches.

In Boxing, the punches are very dangerous because of the amount thrown and the intensity that the boxing gloves permit. The boxing glove is an illusion of safety which does not protect the head of the receiver (except maybe to lessen cuts, yet cuts and bleeding are very common) but protects the hands of the puncher. They allow the boxer to punch MORE and HARDER than with a bare fist or grappling glove as used in the UFC. Boxing analysts themselves will confirm that boxing became much more dangerous when boxing gloves were introduced.

In addition to striking techniques, MMA competition allows for other techniques which "dilute" the striking game, providing an even safer means of winning: choking and joint-locking submissions. These submission techniques are those typically performed in Olympic Judo competition! Submissions make it possible for a fighter to not have to throw many strikes. Some MMA bouts have ended without a single strike being thrown! This contributes to the fact that the knockout rate in MMA is much smaller than in boxing.

When you mention choking techniques in regard to free-style fighting events, the average person envisions brutal strangulation causing very painful and potentially neck-snapping maneuvers with the great possibility of death. But to the educated martial artist and average MMA fan, the true nature of these unfamiliar choking techniques is understood. Chokes are safe, scientific and efficient maneuvers demanding a knowledge and familiarity of certain body mechanics and martial art skill. In addition, direct attacks to the throat such as clawing or squeezing the windpipe with the fingers are NOT permitted in the UFC.

In the martial arts, choking techniques are considered very safe in ending a confrontation because of their painless, harmless and non-brutal nature. With a choke, the goal is to maneuver an opponent into a position of control where a choke can be applied so the opponent has no option but to surrender (submit). The goal is NOT to choke out the opponent causing them to lose consciousness. The surrender is the virtual certainty in these cases -in both Judo and the UFC. When a choke is applied, the fighter senses that he will run out of air (just like a swimmer), knows that he has been defeated and gives up. No harm or damage is sustained. This is why chokes are considered safe and are common everyday practice in dojos (MA training center) all over the world.

In the rare case that a fighter does lose consciousness, he/she can be safely revived with resuscitation techniques, known in Japanese as "kappo". These revival techniques are used in Judo competition and have been utilized safely throughout Judo's long history. In the five-year history of the UFC a fighter has not lost consciousness due to a choke. In the over three decade history of Olympic Judo competition, no competitor has died from a choking technique.

As with choking techniques, much is the same with joint-locking techniques. They too are martial skill and can safely be applied to the point of forcing an opponent's submission without having to actually "break" or injure. They are also commonly practiced in dojos worldwide.

In addition to the ways to end or stop a fight in boxing (doctor and referee stoppage, throwing in the towel, KO and TKO) the UFC includes fighting stoppage via submission - the "tap out", surrendering with honor - a very respected MA practice. As touched upon in the discussion of choking and joint-locking submissions, a fighter can signal surrender at any time in a match when they encounter possible injury or their chance of victory is reduced to virtually nil (e.g., reaching a point of fatigue, having a submission technique applied to them, receiving intolerable strikes) by tapping the opponent or mat several times in which case the dominating opponent ceases attack and/or referee intervenes. [Even if the opponent does not surrender, the referee can recognize if a submission technique is being effected and will stop the match]. Submission can also be communicated verbally. This is not an option in boxing, unfortunately.

The lack of rounds in the UFC is safer than having rounds. Rounds allow boxers to rest and recover some energy to return to the match and be able to deliver more blows. Rounds basically prolong the intensity (amount of and intensity of punches) of a boxing match.

Participants who compete in the UFC are legitimate athletes who possess extensive martial art backgrounds. UFC competitors include Olympic wrestlers, Judo and Jiu-jitsu champions, world karate and kickboxing champions and professional submission fighters from Japan. This is one area where the evolution of the sport has been quite rapid and noticeable; gone are the days when relatively inexperienced unknowns would enter the events, being a new sport to North America. MMA competition has been established and is proliferating all over the world with grass-root movement supplying experienced competitors.

Former and current UFC competitors include:

• Mike Vans Arsdale - 1997 World Cup Champion
• Mark Coleman - 1990, 1991 and 1992 Pan American Championships Champion
• Mark Kerr - 1994 World Cup Champion
• Orlando Weit - 7x World Muai Thai Champion
• Royce Gracie - Brazilian Jujitsu Champion
• Fabio Gurgel - World Jujitsu Champion
• Frank Shamrock - Pancrase Champion (Japanese submission event)
• Ken Shamrock - Pancrase Champion
• Christophe Leinenger - 1994 2nd rated US Judo player
• Igor Zinoviev - Russian National Judo Champion
• Maurice Smith - WKA World Kickboxing Champion

The fighting area used in MMA events varies. In most cases just a boxing ring is used whereas other events utilize a large wrestling mat or a fenced in area. The UFC created the "Octagon" with safety in mind to protect the fighters from falling onto the ground outside. The "Octagon" is constructed with a chain-linked fence surrounding the area they wish to keep the action contained in. This fence also absorbs the impact of the fighters that come in contact with it. It is not a "cage". It serves a functional purpose. In the past five years, the "Octagon" has injured no UFC participants.

The degree of injuries sustained in the UFC/MMA is on par and even LESS than many mainstream sports. Even the spectators themselves at auto racing events have sustained injuries! With a relatively low injury rate, many wonder why governments are eagerly trying to ban MMA. Why not ban the other highly evolved sporting events that have a higher injury and death rate? If politicians are truly concerned about the safety of the participants, their efforts would be better focused towards the regulating and sanctioning of MMA to benefit everyone involved.

In another responsible move, the Mixed Martial Arts Council (MMAC), the UFC's sanctioning body, recently appointed former Olympic wrestling champion, Jeff Blatnick, as commissioner of their organization. He captured the hearts of many sport fans worldwide when he won the 1984 Olympic gold medal in Greco-Roman Wrestling just two years after being diagnosed with cancer and cured. Jeff Blatnick is passionate in maintaining and improving the safety and professionalism of the sport. He's currently in the process of getting MMA sanctioned throughout the US and the PMNA applauds his efforts and will aid him in any way possible.

MMA is a legitimate sport that exhibits talented and skilled athletes engaging in safe and technical martial art combat. The general public has not expressed disapproval of MMA. This pressure comes from opportunistic politicians and discouraged PPV and cable companies. Any athletes that train hard and prepare themselves for such competition should be able to make their CHOICE to compete. Denying an individual of such a choice and the public a sport it is passionate about infringes on democratic rights. The government is supposed to be elected by the people for the people and not a parenting body against the people.

This educational press release document has presented an accurate portrayal of the MMA sport and the current problems that are surrounding them at this time.

The sport of MMA should not be feared, banned or censored. Instead, it should be sanctioned and legalized to insure its safe assimilation into society. MMA is a legitimate sport with a proven safety record. Its organizers have operated the events responsibly and have aimed to make the sport very safe. Recent occurrences indicate the growing popularity, understanding, and acceptance of MMA events worldwide. There have been many formations of new MMA organizations and events, both amateur and professional, all over the world since the arrival of the UFC.

It would be much wiser and beneficial to society (spectator and athlete) to work with MMA involved people to ensure the legitimacy and safety of the sport through its sanctioning and education. To do otherwise will encourage and force it to go "underground" thus causing more harms than good for all of the MMA people involved. The sport of Mixed Martial Arts should be treated in a manner that will reflect its growing acceptance and popularity.

The following contacts have all agreed to talk on behalf of the PMNA and/or MMA. We hope you will utilize these contacts for news, talk shows and government affairs. Thank you very much for reading through the PMNA Educational Press Release and I hope we've helped to educate and open your eyes pertaining to the current MMA situation in North America.