For those who haven’t been paying attention, Erik Herbert and the USMTA are bringing the first sanctioned MMA event to New York in over ten years, this weekend. The TNT Fight Series is an amateur MMA card that is using a special provision in New York State law for full legal sanctioning under the authority of the USMTA. The above video, provided by promotion sponsor Full Blast Clothing, is the full press conference for New York’s first local card of the decade.
While the TNT Fight Series obviously has its own merits as an amateur MMA card, with USMTA rules being nearly identical to the amateur rules practiced by the State Athletic Control Board in neighboring New Jersey, it also serves as a protest for the sustained ban on professional MMA in New York that has been in place since 1997. The presser even begins with a political statement in favor of lifting the ban, and the majority of questions asked during the presser are related to New York State’s hostile relationship with MMA.
The TNT Fight Series will take place May 19 in the upstate town of Towanda, New York: a suburb of Buffalo. Since 2002, it has been a common belief in New York that amateur MMA was also illegal within the state. This was largely due to local authorities using obscure liquor laws to force out the contentious sport. But, ten years and much mainstream exposure later, local authorities in Towanada are now on board with MMA in their town.
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