In the News: Bob Reilly Explains His Stance Against Mixed Martial Arts
By budo-warrior ~ March 14th, 2009. Filed under: In the Media.
Cage Potato has a good interview with New York Assemblyman Bob Reilly on his stance on mixed martial arts. Excerpts:
It’s not a stated goal, though. Even though I grew up a boxing fan and consider myself one still, though I’m not an active fan now, I compare what we should be doing to the difference between amateur boxing and professional boxing. You know how much safer amateur boxing is? A blow in amateur boxing is scored for being a clean blow, not by the force behind it or the damage it causes.
I once had a man come to me and say, ‘My nephew is a jiu-jitsu fighter who does MMA, and he has an advantage because of that. What I’m really interested in is the skill of how he puts his jiu-jitsu skills against a boxer or whomever.’ I asked him, if that’s the case, why don’t people want to watch just jiu-jitsu? Why isn’t that as popular? In other words, I strongly believe, you take the violence out of this and it would lose its appeal. Is it very popular with a certain segment of the population? Certainly. Is collegiate wrestling as popular? No.
I think the Congressman isn’t seeing the technical virtuosity at work in the ring setting.
Also, I don’t understand how he says that boxing isn’t about hurting the other guy, when a KO is about putting it on someone. It’s not just boxing either– I know at least two if not more Olympic style TKD coaches who have told their fighters to “knock the guy out.”
I agree TIm!