UFC VP of Regulatory Affairs Marc Ratner is the man who made all of the details run smoothly at Vancouver UFC 115 card, in spite of the amateur nature of the VAC officials he had to deal with.

Sitting in the press conference a few days before UFC 115 took place, I couldn’t help but shake my head at the sight of the humbled and tentative Mirko Mladenovic, the former chairman of the Vancouver Athletic Commission (VAC).  Mirko sat their alone, possibly shocked that it was all happening in spite of his interventions, which at times put the whole event in severe jeopardy.

I say former because this is what happened yesterday, coming as no surprise to those of us who closely followed the proceedings of how the UFC finally got to Vancouver.

Comments like this show how clueless this guy really is:

““I’ve been on the board for three terms. I am only into this one four months. What has changed? What has changed is they wanted to kill UFC and I approved it.”

Excuse me?  YOU approved it?  And THEY wanted to kill UFC?

Wow.  Here’s the real story folks.

From the day that City Council lifted the MMA ban for a trial period of two years, the writing was on the wall that UFC was coming to Vancouver.

UFC VP of Regulatory Affairs Marc Ratner had been in contact with both GM Place and City of Vancouver officials for the past three years, and the December vote was the culmination of his efforts.

From December until April, the UFC and the City of Vancouver were in closed door discussions about liability, imdemnification and insurance issues.  In spite of shoddy reporting from the likes of Showdown Joe, the event was not ever in serious danger of being moved.

Although, after taking a look at these comments made by the grandstanding former head of the VAC:

“The City of Vancouver does not want to be in the sanctioning business.  After the UFC, we’re going to be at a major impasse.

“The UFC isn’t going to make any money off this.”

it isn’t hard to figure out why such misinformation was being spread amongst the media.  In the midst of heavy-duty and highly sensitive negotiations, Mirko was out in the media being a showboat, claiming that it was the VAC’s approval of UFC that was prompting city officials not to dispose of the event.  NOTHING could be further from the truth.  In fact, Mirko’s ill-timed comments that the City didn’t want to sanction UFC almost provided the impetus for the whole negotiating process to fall apart.  He was a hindrance, not an advocate that made a positive impact.

Far from being at an impasse, the City is now aggressively pursuing a way of importing a more professional system of sanctioning in lieu of the BC Government showing any initiative to form a provincial sanctioning body.  Talks with Quebec to piggyback off of their system are already in the works.

And UFC didn’t make any money off of the event?  Give me a break.  The take for Dana White and crew was about $4.5 million, making it one of the highest gates in UFC history.  That is of course not even counting PPV revenues, which is where the real money is made.

How clueless was Mladenovic in this whole process?  Well, here is just one example: he had to get Ratner to print up forms for the judges’ scoring and bring them up from Vegas because he didn’t have any idea as to what was involved in his role.  In fact, on a myriad of issues, from medical requirements to sanctioning to rules and regulations to purses for the fighters, Ratner had to spoon-feed the entire VAC throughout the two months from the announcement of the event to the day of the fights.

And so what did Mirko do to make up for his shortcomings?  He made it a point of giving City of Vancouver staff a taste of his venom with abusive comments and emails.  From what I have heard, to call him belligerent would be the understatement of the year.  There is apparently a file f0lder full of correspondence from Mirko that accused officials of corruption, incompetence, stupidity – and the language used indicates that harassment and intimidation was his preferred method of getting his point across.

Dave Rudberg is perfectly suited to take on this file.  In fact, with all of the issues of insurance and safety, his Olympic experience will be invaluable in making things run smoothly from this point forward.  He gets how to run a big event, he understands the issues and concerns of the city intimately, and he is professional and well versed in how to deal with the media.

Don’t feel sorry for Mirko, folks – he is far from an MMA martyr.

UFC will be back next year, folks – you can take that to the bank.

Thank goodness that Marc Ratner and his staff won’t have to jump through all the hoops that were necessary this time around.

UFC is big business, and the City of Vancouver needs mature professionals handling the file from this point forward.

Rudberg certainly fits that bill.

Dana White and Gregor Robertson meet for the first time before last Thursday's press conference.

UFC 115 has come and gone, and Vancouver has not lost its moral high ground, nor was the event overtaken by gang warfare.  Most importantly for the issue of the day regarding the card, there were no major injuries to warrant concern about insurance or indemnity for the City.

No, UFC 115 was a spectacle of epic proportions that brought a broad cross-section of fans from across Metro Vancouver to GM Place.  I saw kids that were under 10 and jumping off the walls, and I saw senior citizens who God bless their souls, had trouble walking up the stairs.  I saw guys and girls, I saw ethnicity across the rainbow that Vancouver has to offer, and saw casual and diehard fans in the crowd.

It was well run, it was entertaining as hell, and it made a mint for local economy (one figure I heard from someone who tracks this kind of stuff told me it was at least in excess of $13 million).

UFC is definitely coming back to the city – that has been confirmed by Dana White, and further echoed by the Mayor’s office.

And in the end, it was the political muscle of Gregor Robertson that turned a bureaucratic nightmare into a huge win for the city.

Showdown Joe and I made up after our blog war over whether the UFC had pulled out of Vancouver back in April.

When Showdown Joe of Rogers Sportsnet incorrectly reported that the UFC had pulled out of Vancouver (read the comments for some interesting tidbits from Joe and I), the event was in peril.

The city licensing department, and more specifically department head Tom Hammel, had never dealt with anything like this, and were completely unaware about the fight game (in spite of their report back to City Council).  The Vancouver Atheletic Commission was and continues to remain completely clueless.  Councillor Raymond Louie had put in some very difficult conditions on the lifting of the MMA ban back in December that made the insurance components that a promoter needed to put on the table overwhelming.  There was a complete lack of knowledge about what MMA represented, or really how much money it could inject into the city.  And finally, there was no movement from either the federal government to change the criminal code, or the province to create a provincial sanctioning body.

That is when the Mayor stepped in.  He pulled the parties together.  He sat in on the meetings that took place between city staff and UFC officials.  He played deal maker with Vegas when he had to.

And why?  Because he got it, both in terms of what the general public was pushing for, and for the impact it would have on the city.  He was not tied up in dogmatic nanny-state politics, but rather he followed the populist winds while at the same time going through great lenghts to protect the City and more specifically taxpayers from any undue risk.

That is why the day after last week’s press conference, Dana White praised the Mayor like no other politician I have ever witnessed (and I have been following White and the UFC for many, many years).

Robertson stepped in, and brokered a successful result.

Funnily enough, this might be one of Gregor Robertson’s most popular interventions, the circumstances of which prove why this man is going to be Mayor until 2015.  Of that, I would put good money on.

I want to take a moment to commend UFC VP of Regulatory Affairs, who was truly the unsung hero in all of this.  His work with the athletic commission (for which I must say is truly a joke), and his ability to educate and provide the infrastructure to make things run smoothly, was out of this world.  He was a driving force behind this win, and deserve recognition (even if he doesn’t particularly care about it).

UFC will be back within 12-18 months, my friends, and for all of you who missed out on the show, I highly recommend you get tickets next time.  This was a show that few events in Vancouver can rival.

CTV Sportsnet's "Showdown" Joe Ferraro might have stepped into an empty octagon before, but that certainly didn't help his credibility last week after falsely reporting that the UFC Vancouver pay-per-view had been cancelled.

He calls himself “Showdown Joe” and ironically, the name of the show he hosts on CTV Sportsnet is entitled “MMA Connected.”  Yet, you would never have known that Joe Ferraro has any knowledge or connection to the sport with the way he inserted himself into the UFC-Vancouver courtship last week, which revolved  around his shoddy reporting that put the now-secured deal in serious jeopardy.

Before I get into the story of how everything went down last week, here are a couple of excerpts from a from an interview Joe did where he described how he broke into MMA broadcasting:

“From there, we started sponsoring fighters at various events and then I met up with some promoters. They fell in love with the knowledge that I had and how I could break down fights into what this guy needs to do to win and what that guy needs to do to win, and then during the fight I would explain what guys needed to do to get out of a position and they said, “Did you ever think about doing commentary?”

“About three or four month in, the guys from Sportsnet started getting into MMA, they started covering the UFC and they decided, “We need an analyst; someone who is involved in the sport and can pick up the phone and call Chuck Liddell or Randy Couture.” So they started looking around and realized that The Fan 590 is owned by the same company as Sportsnet – Rogers Communications – and said, “Who’s this Showdown Joe guy? Let’s bring him in.”

Humble and not at all self-absorbed, as you can clearly see.

Now let’s examine Joe’s breaking news from last week, and his supposed chat with UFC president Dana White, which he still will not confirm with any certainty in spite of repeated emails from me.

Last Monday, the UFC and the City of Vancouver were deep in meetings regarding the proposed June event after weeks of trying to get a deal done.  Now in spite of reports to the contrary (which I will cite in a second), the reason that things took so long is not because Council was holding things up, or that bureaucrats were running amok within the walls of City Hall.

Simply, the City of Vancouver will be the first host city of a UFC pay-per-view where a province or state sanctioning body does not exist.  As an example, there have been two successful UFC events held in Montreal, both of which were facilitated by the Quebec Alcohol Racing and Gaming Commission (QAC).  This provincial sanctioning body is responsible for the rules, regulations and parameters of such contests, which in turn insulates the City of Montreal from potential legal action.

Pretty simple stuff.  But in the midst of the talks about Vancouver’s UFC future, these are the kinds of headlines that started seeping out, unbeknownst to anyone involved in the negotiations at the time:

“Source says UFC Vancouver show is off, may be switched to Cincinnati”

“Vancouver UFC show likely moving to Cincy”

“UFC Vancouver show is off: source”

“UFC down for the count in Vancouver“

So who was this “source”?  Was it someone within the city?  Or maybe a representative from UFC like VP of Regulatory Affairs Marc Ratner or Lawrence Epstein, the organization’s general legal counsel?

No.  It was Showdown Joe, who allegedly received confirmation from Dana White.  As I mentioned, I sent Joe a few emails last week to find out what exactly White allegedly told him, and was greeted with complete silence.  No surprise there, I guess, in consideration of the fact that a deal was indeed reached just 3 days after Joe’s initial claims became public.

Now Joe was correct about one thing – the show in Vancouver would have been moved to Cincinnati if terms were not reached.

But I have deep reservations about what Ferraro is claiming Dana White told him.

And before Ferraro goes and claims that it was his reporting of White’s supposed utterance that changed the course of the negotiations, let me tell you that I hear it simply caused bitter feelings and miscommunication between the two parties rather than helping to speed the process along.

The fact is that talks never failed, and never stopped.  There were issues that came down to the wire, without a doubt, but at no point did the City of Vancouver back away from trying to make something happen.

As an example, the requests for indemnification and insurance protection for the city were drastically altered by City Manager Penny Ballem and her staff to ensure that Vancouver didn’t lose out on what could prove to be a cash infusion of approximately $20 million.

Take a look at this interview from Joe on the day that his network was looking for answers as to who was responsible for the “show being choked out in Vancouver.”

He claimed that “it’s the politicians over there that are apparently making this extremely difficult for the UFC and any mixed martial arts events in general from occurring on their soil.”

WRONG.  As soon as Council passed the motion lifting the ban back in December, they had little to do with the day-to-day negotiations.  Actually, the Mayor, from what I hear, was the only one who was actively encouraging, not obstructing, officials to get a deal signed.

When asked why Vancouver was any different than Montreal in terms of securing an event, Joe responded with “It’s very difficult to try figure out, only because…uh…I’m trying to understand what are the liabilities, because every commission out there, be it North America or around the world, that regulates mixed martial arts, they’ve got the same issues so why can they still hold these events?”

Well Joe, that is also WRONG.  As I mentioned above, Vancouver is breaking new ground because of the fact that the province of British Columbia has no sanctioning body for MMA, making it different from any other past UFC host city.

So no Joe, the City of Vancouver COULD NOT “follow the model that’s been successful for all these different states and provinces that continue to hold mixed martial arts events” – not without the provincial government.

Joe’s clearly one of those reporters that revels in the access he has in the big names of UFC, whether it is Dana White or Tito Ortiz.  In fact, as you can see above from the excerpt I posted from the print interview with Ferraro, he flashes his ability to “pick up the phone and call Chuck Liddell or Randy Couture” as one of his selling points.

Good for you Joe.  That is a real feather in the cap of an MMA reporter.

But next time you want to make use of those speed dial numbers you have programmed into your phone, maybe you should do a little more digging into the facts before you insert false stories into the mix and almost compromise an event of such importance – particuarly to your profession.

Yesterday I dealt with the rocky road that MMA has had to encounter in Vancouver over the past few years.  Today I want to delve into what I outlined as the three most pressing issues that City Council will have to consider in the vote that is now expected sometime in November:

1. Safety
2. Liability
3. Economic Impact

While at one point these might have been considerations that Council could use as justification for delaying the return of professionally sanctioned fights to Vancouver, the concerns have largely been alleviated by the facts.

Believe it or not, these MMA-style gloves are far more safe than boxing gloves. The security features and precautions in the world of MMA have truly evolved over the past decade.

First, let’s deal with safety.

The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) debuted in the United States in 1993 and marketed as no-holds-barred tournaments that favoured brutality and blood over the science of say boxing for example.

Proper sanctioning only came in 2001, when a number of rule changes prompted the Nevada State Athletic Commission and the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board to agree to regulate the competitions as a sport.  Gone were headbutts, stomps or knees to an opponent on the ground, strikes to the throat, spine or back of the head, fighters competing across weight classes, fights that lasted for an unlimited amount of time until a final result and the occurrence of fighters engaging in more than one fight per night.  Fighters became subject to the same physical exam used to screen professional boxers (including a cerebral MRI) before being licensed.

I might note that the UFC Vice President of Regulatory Affairs, Marc Ratner, is the formerly with the Nevada State Athletic Commission.  Ratner joined the Nevada Athletic Commission in 1985, became the Chief Inspector in 1987 and served as the Commission’s Executive Director from 1992 to 2006.

Since his arrival, the UFC has visited Quebec, London, Dublin, Belfast, Manchester, Birmingham, Newcastle and Cologne, and been sanctioned in close to 40 states in the United States.  He travels with a staff that consists of dozens of medical professionals, regulatory experts and safety consultants all there to improve the competition of the sport in every ring situation in every constituency.

A report from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Department of Emergency Medicine entitled “Injury Trends in Sanctioned Mixed Martial Arts Competition: A Five-Year Review, 2002-2007,” details that:

“During the 635 professional MMA matches, 300 of the 1,270 athletes sustained documented injuries with an injury rate of 23.6 per 100 fight participations. Most common reported injuries were lacerations and upper extremity injuries. Severe concussion rate was 15.4 per 1,000 athlete exposures, or 3% of all matches. No deaths or critical sports-related injuries resulted from any of the regulated matches during the study period. Age, weight, and fight experience did not statistically increase the likelihood of injuries after controlling for other covariates.”

The report concluded that injury rates in regulated professional MMA competition are similar to other combat sports; the overall risk of critical sports-related injury seems to be low.

In fact, there are other sports that have a far more sordid history when it comes to  safety and injury.

The risks of taking a tumble from this height have made cheerleading far more dangerous than MMA, according to the statistics.

In the United States, there were 22,900 cheerleading-related injuries treated in emergency rooms in 2002, up from 10,900 in 1990, according to the Columbus study. The Consumer Product Safety Commission, meanwhile, reported there were nearly six times as many emergency room visits for cheerleaders in 2004 than in 1980.

Of 104 catastrophic injuries sustained by female high school and college athletes from 1982 to 2005 — head and spinal trauma that occasionally led to death — more than half resulted from cheerleading, according to the National Center for Catastrophic Sports Injury Research. All sports combined did not surpass cheerleading.

In 2005, the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s Catastrophic Injury Insurance Program found that 25 percent of the money spent on claims for student-athletes since 1998 resulted from cheerleading. That made it second only to football.

Boxing, which subjects fighters to repeated head punches, is believed to cause brain damage that has gone largely undocumented until very recently.  A study by researchers at the University of Pennsylvania concludes that 17 percent of former professional boxers have a form of advanced Parkinson’s disease, commonly called “punch-drunk syndrome,” that is the result of multiple brain concussions.

Bottom line?  The injury record for MMA is very favourable to several other sports that are seamlessly allowed to compete within the City of Vancouver.

Secondly, let’s deal with liability.

Here is what the City’s Chief Licensing Inspector Tom Hammell is proposing:

“Promoters must provide evidence of commercial general liability insurance with limits of not less than $2 million for professional boxing and wrestling events and exhibitions.  The required limit of commercial general liability insurance is to be increased to a minimum limit of $5 million for kick-boxing, mixed martial arts and ultimate fighting events.   The policy is to be issued in the promoter’s name and shall name the City of Vancouver and Vancouver Athletic Commission, their officials, officers, employees and agents as additional insureds with respect to liability arising out of the activities and operations conducted by or on behalf of the promoter.”

Injuries on the Burrard Bridge (before the trial) and the ensuing lawsuits over the past decade have represented far more liability risk to the City of Vancouver than MMA sanctioning.

This is standard.  Any venue and or municipality that sanctions a fight, REGARDLESS OF WHETHER IN CANADA, THE U.S. OR EUROPE, is always intricately protected from financial liability for injury or other incidents.  The promoter is always the one that takes on that responsibility, and the contracts that are signed with the venue and the respective athletic commission provides ample detail to signify this kind of arrangement.

The City of Montreal has held two events thus far without fear of reprisal, so why should it be any different in Vancouver’s case?

Which brings me to my final issue of the economic impact on a host city.

The numbers, quite frankly, are staggering.

The Ultimate Fighting Championship’s sophomore event in Montreal set a new North American MMA attendance record with 21,451 attendees, who combined for a staggering $4.9 million gate.  The combined economic spinoffs from the two UFC events held in Montreal is estimated to be over $50 million.

A recent study done in New York state found that a UFC event in New York City would generate $11.5 million in ‘net new’ economic activity: $5.3 million in direct event spending, $1.4 million in non-lodging visitor spending, and $4.9 million in indirect/induced benefits.  This would in turn provide and $400,000 in tax revenue for New York City and $550,000 in tax revenue for the state.

Another study in Massachusetts determined that a UFC event in Boston would produce economic output of $12.3 million. provide $775,000 in tax revenues to the state and employ 600 workers.

In Las Vegas, the UFC generated $86.2 million in nongaming revenue for six events between February 2, 2008 and January 31, 2009.

This is only referring to UFC.  Rival organizations like StrikeForce would also be potential suitors for Vancouver’s beautiful locale, and would similarly result in millions of dollars in revenues with stars like Fedor Emelianenko on their roster.  There is also a number of local promoters that would have the ability to draw in 2,000-3,000 fans for events with a mid-level name in the MMA world.

This was UFC 97 in Montreal. Based on interest in Western Canada, Vancouver could stage the highest grossing event in the history of UFC.

The possibilities for revenue and tax generation associated with MMA are endless, and only bound to grow.

Western Canadian fans are rapid when it comes to their love for MMA.  The UFC 100 pay-per-view event drew a capacity crowd of 12,000 people, paying an average of more than $425 per ticket, and amassing a live gate of $5.1 million US.  Ringside seats were being sold by resellers for as much as $40,000 in the days leading up to the event.  A large number of those ticket-holders flew in from Western Canada — in fact, 10 per cent of ticket buyers at reseller website StubHub came from Alberta, with a further seven per cent hailing from B.C.

According to Dana White, President of UFC:

“It’s an interesting situation because I think, pound-for-pound, the UFC is more popular in Canada than any other country — including the USA.”

Let the spending bonanza – a sustained and long term spending bonanza – begin.

Tomorrow in Part 3 of this series, I will examine how MMA has the potential to spark a renewal in Vancouver’s professional sports scene, which over the past decade has experienced some serious blows.