I didn’t get too involved in the back and forth in the ongoing drama of the UFC negotiations the last few months, but they were certainly rocky, with any number of media reports that the event was going to be cancelled at various points.
Vancouver did seem to have a harder time than other cities in figuring this out, although it’s not the only regulatory body that ever had a scrap with the UFC organization or mixed-martial-arts proponents. It looks from past history as though Minnesota also went a few rounds with the MMA people. Nevada seems to have had the least problems, likely because they have put on so many unarmed combat events as part of the Las Vegas scene. Even they, though, did ask for some changes to the rules before sanctioning events.
Here, though, it was definitely a roller-coaster ride — for any number of reasons, as I discovered when calling around.
19 responses so far ↓
1 Sean Bickerton // Jun 15, 2010 at 12:08 pm
The UFC flooded the streets of the International Village neighbourhood around Tinseltown Mall on Saturday with bands of intoxicated young men harrassing residents from noon on and using our streets as a public urinal.
And unlike every other sporting event in the past two years including major hockey tournaments, there was a slight feeling of underlying menace in the streets during the day.
My partner walked the three blocks up to Nestors to buy groceries and came back relating an encounter with just one of the gangs that became instantly hostile when he refused to engage in a high five.
In short there was an atmosphere of public drunkenness, disorder and lawlessness, and whether or not the gay-bashing of our good friends and neighbours was related to the event has yet to be determined, but it happened at 10:55 pm after the event let out, and the individuals in question were urinating against a building before they attacked and viciously beat the owners of the property on which they were micturating.
There is no place in our neighbourhood for this kind of violence or public lawlessness and it won’t be tolerated.
The Mayor that lobbied for this event and attended it should have ensured there was adequate security for the residents of the area forced to host one of the most violent events in the city’s recent history.
An inquiry is needed to answer two questions:
1) Where was the normal presence of uniformed officers out on the streets to maintain order from noon onwards, which is when the public intoxication became obvious to everyone.
I’ve been told they focused more on plainclothes anti-gang forces, which would have been more focused on the stadium, but crowd control requires visible officers in uniform at important intersections.
2) What security was the UFC responsible for, knowing the concerns of residents and the violent history of this event.
What happened in our neighbourhood was horrific regardless of the affiliation with UFC or not. Police continue to investigate and the evidence isn’t in yet. But that event and it’s “fans” created the atmosphere that made that assault possible.
2 spartikus // Jun 15, 2010 at 1:03 pm
I’m very bewildered by the appeal of this, er, sport, but it does seem to have some amongst my peers. Life is a mystery sometimes.
It may be that policing at future UFC events needs to be on the level of a playoff hockey game (closing liquor stores early, etc), rather than a regular season game.
It was an unknown quantity to the VPD before this. Now…it’s not.
3 The Fourth Horseman // Jun 15, 2010 at 6:27 pm
Well, here’s what on MMA fan said on the website “Fight Opinion” about the crowd at GM Place the other night:
The Gaijin says: June 14, 2010 at 5:07 pm
I was at the show in Vancouver and if the crowd there was indicative of our society this is a bad thing. Obviously I’m being overwrought and there’s the factor that apparently half of Surrey, BC was there (Compton/Stockton of the Canadian west coast, a true “thug life” sh*thole full of druggies and wannabe tough guys) – but I have never been to any sort of sporting event (including UFCs in LV) that had a bigger collection of mouth breathers in my life.
It’s a wonder Affliction(*) couldn’t continue burning money by the barrel on their mma shows and not give a rat’s behind…the bad haircuts, tsunami of horrid tribal tattoos and HGH-steroid pouring out of people’s pores. It was certainly a sight to behold. And the amount of faux tough-guy testosterone was comical…I’ve never seen people mean mug everyone in sight and staredown/posture up at EVERY single person that remotely brushed by them. A majority of mma fans, at least in this area, are f#cking embarrassing.
And that, from a FAN.
Note: *’According to another blog report, Affliction’ branded t-shirts were worn by many who visited St. Paul’s emergency room that night. Affliction has been a sponsor of many UFC ‘Sporting events’. It would be interesting to check with other hospital emerg wards in other cities in which UFC events have been held to see if their in-bound patients have made a particular fashion statement on those particular nights.
Oh, and from the ‘Did You Know?” file: ‘Affliction brands are rooted in and beloved by the hard rock and sports communities’. It says so, on their website.
This brand and Ed Hardy caps: one sure way to pick out the a**holes amongst us. If it looks like a duck, and walks like a duck and attends UFC events, etc.
But, I digress…
For further insight, here is Iain McIntyre’s (a sportswriter at the Vancouver Sun) take on the proceedings:
http://www.vancouversun.com/sports/Fight+like+execution+except+took+longer/3151382/story.html
Oh, Vancouver, my darling Vancouver. What is happening to you?
4 David // Jun 16, 2010 at 4:33 pm
I had the crap beaten out of me that night. It certainly did not feel like home. Is the Mayor going to continue with his 2 year test of UFC events in Vancouver or is he going to learn a lesson that the city was out of control? Does someone have to get killed to make the point?
5 gmgw // Jun 16, 2010 at 5:40 pm
I have little enough respect for Gregor as it is, but I have never been so utterly disgusted with him as when he joined with the UFC promoter (forgotten his name) in a photo op/media schmooze session, thereby explicitly giving the City’s endorsement of what took place on Saturday night, both inside and outside the arena. It was one thing to finally give approval for the UFC goonfest to take place. It’s quite another for our beloved Mayor and several Council members to stand up on their hind legs and proudly proclaim this bloodbath to be a Good Thing. When Suzanne Anton naively announced some time ago that she would attend the event and was in fact eagerly looking forward to it, one had to wonder if she had the dook of an idea what the event would consist of. One envisioned her proudly seated in the front row and getting a great gout of blood splashed all over her expensive new frock, sending her screaming up the aisle for the exits while the audience howled for more.
In the interest of full disclosure and in order to avoid accusations of being a candy-ass liberal like the Mayor, I will note that in my long-ago youth I spent some years engaged in the practice of the traditional martial arts and in fact gained belt ranking in Okinawan Goju-Kai karate. I have also dabbled in several other combat forms including boxing. And despite or maybe because of this background, I am absolutely appalled at the UFC “culture” and the knuckle-dragging Roman Coliseum-style blood sport it represents. It has nothing in common with martial “arts”, with sportsmanship, with the building of character; and everything to do with sheer brutality and viciousness. Read Ian McIntyre’s Sun story to see what I mean (link kindly provided by Fourth Horseman, above). And what he describes was just in the ring. The audience at these events is,, if anything, even scarier. As we saw on the weekend… a true Surrey apotheosis.
Gregor Robertson deserves to have the shit pounded out of him in a dark Yaletown alley for disgracing our town by endorsing this garbage. How much lower can this city sink?
gmgw
6 Dan Cooper // Jun 17, 2010 at 2:18 pm
Apparently y’all didn’t see the write-up in the Courier, which informed us – courtesy of the facility manager, mayor, police, and other luminaries – that everything went absolutely perfectly, and except for some people trying to sneak in booze from outside, all those in attendance were perfect ladies and gentlemen at every point.
(Riiiiight!)
7 Ron Yamauchi // Jun 18, 2010 at 10:33 am
Ditto, Spartikus. Local pd now knows what to expect. I don’t think that the shows are necessarily bad and it’s mere utopianism to sigh for an imaginary time when an urban area of 2 million could not conjure up a mere 18,000 of violence-loving spectators. So there will be more of these events, and fat OT cheques for officers willing play baton-ball with heads that have Ed Hardy caps on them — all of it very good for the economy.
ps I have a personal anecdote about MMA. A few years ago I was waiting for my wife to come out of London Drugs and the payphone rang. Being the curious sort I answered it and some dude very creepily complimented me on my physique and offered to sign me up for a Tough Man bout. This was their recruiting technique! Somehow I found the will to decline.
8 We Are Amused // Jun 20, 2010 at 11:03 am
Ron,
The cops did shoddy work here. Period. They knew well what they were looking for inside GM Place, so why didn’t they cover the neighborhood, too?
Looks like the overall state of policing, including using good old street sense, is in overall decline in this country.
Chief Chu disgracefully dismissed out of hand the opinion that UFC could have had anything to do with the gay bashing that took place after the event. He doesn’t even know who the perps are yet! Because such speculation might reflect badly on Hizzoner, who was sitting ringside at the slugfest? Time will tell.
And why should we accept this crap spectacle as part of our “urban area”? Other jurisdictions have emphatically said “NO!”. Abbotsford is looking like the leader in good sense here, for god’s sake.
Could it be that our council and Mayor love the optics of being “down” with 18,000 younger people? The majority of whom will not vote anyway, thank goodness for that.
Or the political points (and fees to the city) they think they will score amongst service establishments, by adding this crap event to the calendar? As per the note above, apparently t-shirt and beer sellers are now the mainstay of the urban “economy” that will be served here. Wow, we sure think big here in Van, don’t we?
And that’s how you justify your opinion? That UFC is good for the economy??? So is prostitution, apparently. Still, I wouldn’t want my baby sister being a practioner.
Surely there are more creative and sane ways of adding funds to the city coffers or supplying bodies (excuse the pun) to the commercial establishments in this town.
Finally, In closing, I note the oddly preening and self congratulatory nod you give to your own physique, it being the kind that the MMA community is hunting for…why DON’T you sign up for next UFC event the Mayor is plumping for, and let us know how that goes.
Creepy. Indeed.
9 We Are Amused // Jun 20, 2010 at 11:15 am
Oh.
I get it now.
Vancouver is to be the the new “Vegas North” replete with ginourmous casino and gladiatorial events like UFC to entertain the mouth-breathing masses.
Ruled over by G. Robertson, AKA “The Mayor of Mayhem!”.
Lovely.
10 Ron Yamauchi // Jun 21, 2010 at 12:36 pm
Uh, not bragging about my physique — I thought it was bizarre, a funny story about the fecklessness of local fight promotion.
Regarding Vegas North, that decision was made years ago and not by G Robertson, who was not even in the organic juice biz then. I see this as a savvy move to add some testosterone-by-proxy for his inevitable premier campaign. Which I would support, being a bike rider easily bought off by Dunsmuir’s bike lane.
As for chasing high profile, high dollar events, I think that is something that all mayors would be wise to look at. I don’t know if or why MMA got shot down in Abbotsford but I hear they have their own tax/image/boondoggle problems with their poorly considered decision to subsidize the farm team of *Calgary’s* hated Flames.
MMA is not my cup of tea, but it seems to me that a modern city should not be afraid of offering this spectacle, which has already done all the of the cultural harm it will ever do, via that television device (you’ve heard of it), and which apparently does less physical harm to its practitioners than boxing or for that matter, pro football.
11 We Are Amused // Jun 21, 2010 at 3:52 pm
Ron,
Oh, good grief. Testosterone by proxy?? Isn’t there something more natural that they could put in that Happy Planet stuff? A “juiced” Mayor. That’s just what we need: Roid rage from our elected officials.
(And anyway, Everyone knows the pols with the biggest pair in this town are the women).
Abbotsford’s Mayor stated very, very clearly that he didn’t want the UFC in town because of his nervousnes about the kind of crowd such an event would attract. He is already uncomfortable that his community is known as the murder capital of the country, so one can certainly undertand that he would rather pass the event honour to Vancouver.
Your argument that MMA is less physically harmful than football and boxing is surely the most over-utilized argument “the true believers” like to trot out. Football, by the sheer number of people playing it has injuries, but unless someone is completely out of control, one rarely sees linebackers throttling placekickers during the action. Boxing, not my fave sport, but one where the refs do seem to have a little more pity on the participants. We call it mercy, where I come from.
High profile, and high dollar events are certainly what every civic official slavers over. That they think that anything goes, with regards to this event, may just surprie them at the ballot box the next time. As a bike-riding woman myself, who enjoys a clean hip check in hockey (no Bertuzzi stuff) and the beauty of a CFL tackle, I don’t see the values about UFC events exactly aligning with mine. Noone stops the mayhem until many are sent to the hospital.
I feel very comfy in saying that I probably am representative of a lot of my women friends, who do vote. To say that on this issue, they feel totally let down, by a Mayor who sold himself as a peaceful sort and should be taking the lead role in eschwing this pointless violence, would be quite the undertatement. Someone ain’t walking the talk, here.
I know that along with that television device of which you speak, there is another quaint notion from a time and place, farther and farther away and not necessarily appreciated by many today. It is called “community standards”. Apparently, community standards help us form the rules and regs of conduct in society. But woe betide us when Dana White comes up against them! Those standards get held down on the mat, are pummeled and then throttled, then pummelled some more, until our jelly-fish council —who are supposed to uphold them–tap out.
I would have to see a HUGE jump
12 We Are Amused // Jun 21, 2010 at 4:16 pm
Sorry, last sentence not supposed to be there.
But let me make one more point in answer to Ron’s sentiment that television has shown the worst of UFC.
I will posit that young people who get their UFC info from TV or by gaming, don’t actually get how viscious this stuff is.
Witness again, Iain McIntyre’s Sun piece, where he notes that the Canadain fighter, down for the count, spitting blood and clearly unable to defend himself, is exhorted and begged by the crowd to “get up! get up!”. As if he is Wiley Coyote, anvil dropped on head, falling off the cliff, able to bounce right back up!
Don’t you find this lack of understanding in the heads of specttors, that a flesh and blood man, badly beaten, can’t suddenly emerge the victor, a wee bit scary?
And before you say, oh, that happens all the time in hockey, I would say that I have never heard people cheer when they realize someone is hurt on the ice. The place takes on an eerie silence.
Does this then mean that the young are inurred to the pain and disabling they see before them at a UFC event? Have they drunk the Kool-Aid on the cartoonish aspect of this stuff, that no-one really gets hurt? Or is it that that they just don’t “get” how a beating can go so wrong? Or is it that they just don’t care?
Could this be a lack of empathy we are breeding into today’s kids, if that’s the kind of behaviour one experiences at an MMA event?
It hardly seems fair to hang it just on the kids. Must be confusing to them when the leader of your town shares a photo op with the likes of MMA promoters, and then coos about people being beaten up after the event.
13 Ron Yamauchi // Jun 21, 2010 at 4:51 pm
Gregor cooed about people being beaten up after the event? Link please.
Boxing vs. MMA: both are interesting and useful skills. I myself have never found them so interesting that I wanted to *watch* or worse yet make it a profession, but I will say that boxing is far more violent since it confines the acceptable targets to head and body strikes, for up to 15 rounds. MMA is three rounds max, most of the strikes are to the limbs, and the vast majority of fights (I am told) wind up as wrestling matches on the ground, where the rule is to tap out or pass out.
Does the UFC send a bad message to the community? Undoubtably but I remember watching the completely corny and made-up All-Star Wrestling back in the 70s, and then me and my stupid buddies would all go out into the backyard and thrash around. My point is that testosterone poisoning is kind of endemic to my gender (it’s our cultural tradition!) and attempts to suppress the expressions thereof seem to me to be wildly utopian. ( Except in Iceland under the Women’s Party, which banned beer and dogs.) So, as with Prohibition, you might as well get some tax money out of it. YMMV
14 Ron Yamauchi // Jun 21, 2010 at 4:58 pm
ps regarding lack of empathy being bred into today’s kids: Guess what? It’s bred into *no one.* Empathy is learned. It’s not the UFC’s or Vision Vancouver’s responsibility or place to teach The Children. It’s mine and every other parent’s (yes you’re horrified but I’m mostly pretty decent).
The world is not yet a civilized place but you could take a bit of succor in the historical perspective, in that humanity is the most empathetic it has ever been, in terms of supposed shared values as expressed and ratified in legally binding international covenants on human rights and freedoms from torture, refoulment, etc.
We have a long way to go as a species to eliminate our evil impulses, but Thich Naht Hahn suggests the parable of the garden needing shit.
15 We Are Amused // Jun 21, 2010 at 7:29 pm
Gregor made cooing sounds about the violence that was perpetrated against two gay men the evening of that event: how he was shocked, SHOCKED that that had happened, how there is no place in society for that kind of behaviour, yada yada. Rings a litle hollow to me, after he spent that evening ringside at the UFC event, watching the snot get kicked out of several guys.
Again, Ron, there are many sporting events that help release testosterone (and yes, we women have our share and need to express it too), so I think that MMA, or at least the UFC version of MMA), trying to corner the market(ing) using that as an explanation and reason d’etre ,is more than a little silly. And bullshitish, to boot.
I used the term “bred” as interchangeable with the term “learned”. Empathy IS learned—and when you pass off this stupidy as “sport” (or spectacle, as you have more aptly described it), on this we can agree: if we insist that “sporting events” like UFC are the new, accepted, lowered threshhold for civilized behaviour, where does the next lesson land us?
No, I am not horrified that you have a kid.—in fact, I salute you for producing future taxpayers who will help pay for our pensions. Yay! have more, please. Because I forgot to.
And yes, I will even agree that you seem a decent sort, who will go out of your way to teach your child things like compassion, empathy and support for fellow human beings—which makes your laissez-faire stand with regards to UFC all the more untenable.
My old philosophy teacher, Stan Persky, told us that, in this life, of course you have to make judgements, partly in order to have the species survive. Why can’t we take a stand? It seems to me that you are trying to argue two very different sides of the issue when it comes to UFC (muy tai, the Gracie brothers—I get that. But what the UFC does is NOT that practice). Beating up guys, for the sake of beating up guys on the street: bad. Beating up guys, for the sake of beating up guys, for profit: good. How do you define the differnce?
What next? Because they are consenting adults, perhaps a future UFC bout between a man and a woman? Might there not be some unintended consequences come of that, perceptions that are not healthy for our society? Oh, but it would be sexist to not let’em go at each other! Especially when there are all those gate receipts to consider…
As to this Golden Era of Empathy you suggest the world is going through (well, maybe not in Darfur, the Congo, Rwanda, Afghanistan, North Korea—hell, I’ll even throw in Arizona!!), I would agree that the world as a whole may be more civilized, even as communications borders (including social media) fall. But I suggest things “out here”—at least in our own little old Metro Vancouver back yard— seem to indicate that perhaps we are not “as nice” as we used to be.
No, Gregor Robertson is not Dad—but he needs to be a leader and stand up to those things that add to the sad downward trajectory of our community, instead of looking out for fight whores like those that support the UFC.
I would suggest that Thich Naht Hahn was not considering MMA in his musings
16 Ron Yamauchi // Jun 21, 2010 at 7:43 pm
I’ve read Stan Persky and that dude has abused his body far more than Randy Couture ever will!
Of course there are choices in society. I choose to allow choice! Some people like Wagner, others like Wham. In my utopia both of those groups would not exist since they are shit music but there is choice.
Men should have the choice to compete against one another in MMA battles, or to appear in horror movies, or to do any other thing that hurts no one else (hurt being relative and somewhat ironic), given their free will and yadda. I don’t have to watch it, and if it lowers the public discourse somewhat, I am content in the knowledge that there are better human beings — like you, obviously — to tell us that we are wrong and barbaric.
17 Ron Yamauchi // Jun 21, 2010 at 7:55 pm
con’t… (because I enjoy bantering)
I will concede that if UFC didn’t exist widely in the public consciousness already, I would not vote to bring it into being. But it is out there. Supposedly Jim Chu has done the research showing lack of causation between UFC event and crime, and since his words are actionable I give them considerable weight. In my view people are more likely to be hurt because of those moronic bike protests that tie up traffic for half an hour.
So it comes down to really whether it fits Vancouver’s image or not. I think it is a valid entertainment choice; I mean, we have already had tractor pulls and Hank Williams Jr shows, so what the heck.
18 We Are Amused // Jun 22, 2010 at 10:10 am
Ron,
Surely, you too have some “absolutes” lurking in the dark reaches of your mind that you would hope to see erradicated in your lifetime.
Like:
The war in Afghanistan
Homelessness
The drug wars
Tell me, because you might advocate and work towards an end to these, this would make you a hectoring, school-marmish, my-way-or-the-highway scold like me, right? Bring it on, I sez!
Guess it depends on which ox is being gored and under what rubric: “serious minded, global concern for which we really can’t do jack squat about” or “low level jack-hammering posing as ‘entertainment’ taking place in my backyard”.
I know that banning things always makes them more intriguing to a sub-set. Nonetheless, if there is no public censure–or even a good ol’ fashioned public scolding—it seem to me that we in effect are shrugging our shoulders and giving, if not stated acceptance, tacit acceptance.
I ask the question: which comes first? The decline in common sense and community values? Or the degradation to the human soul that leads to a decline in common sense and community values?
I agree that if the tractor pull is an indication of the Apocalypse, then surely Dana White and his ilk are the collective bareback riding (and you can reference that crack any way you see fit) Fourth Horseman of same.
I heard the police chief state that he had research. I would love to see it, and the questions that were asked. Further I would like to see hospital emerg rooms in other cities close to event venues checked to see if there was a spike in admittances to those hospitals on the night of fights.
Enjoying the bantering. It centres the mind, wonderfully!
19 Ron // Jun 30, 2010 at 9:05 am
Yeah, so, an MMA fighter died in the ring the other day… so, strike what I said about it being safer than boxing.
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