Fighting a bad image

WORCESTER -- Fight promoter Mike Varner had never done this before. In an effort to counter negative perceptions about mixed martial arts -- sometimes referred to as ultimate or extreme fighting -- he brought out a dozen artists skilled in various disciplines.

Some demonstrated jiujitsu, others kickboxing. Eight-year-old Nicholas Tesler and 10-year-old Debra Margalhaes demonstrated submission wrestling. The crowd of about 900 people at the Worcester Palladium -- some dressed as if they were about to compete themselves, others as though they were about to go clubbing -- watched attentively and applauded.

''People have felt that mixed martial arts was just some kind of barbaric style -- they never really knew what went into it," Varner said later. ''I thought sometime in their life these people probably heard of the six or seven arts that go into MMA. They probably never said, 'That's barbaric.' Mixed martial arts is all those styles."

Seven fights followed. Bouts ran as long as eight minutes and as short as mere seconds. Some ended when the fighter gave up after being trapped in a submission hold. Others ended when a referee decided one fighter was unable to defend himself any longer. There were spinning karate kicks, painful holds, and lots of punching. A popular technique was the ''ground and pound," in which a fighter works his opponent to the mat, mounts his torso, and tries to end the fight with rapid punches to the head.

No one was seriously injured. There was blood, to be sure, but no one suffered a cut serious enough to stop a fight.

''There's always risk of injury," said Dr. Lenny Waice of Holden, the physician-in-attendance at last Friday's event. ''It's a contact fighting. It's no different with boxing. That's the sport. I can't believe Boston shut this down."

A few weeks earlier, Varner and his fight company, East Coast Fighting Alliance, had sold 600 tickets to a mixed martial arts event to be held June 4 in Boston at the Roxy, about 2 miles from Avalon, where 12 such events have been held over the past four years. But when Varner filed for approval with Boston's licensing commission May 27, he was told there needed to be a hearing first to address concerns about rowdiness and the nature of the fighting. Trying to avoid a standoff, Varner attempted to move the event to a club in Taunton near his training gym. There, officials told him he needed a permit and would have to meet with the city council to get it. Neither requirement could be met in time for the show to go on.

When Varner began eyeing Worcester, he met similar roadblocks. The event was eventually welcomed after the state boxing commission, which regulates mixed martial arts, sent a letter to concerned Worcester officials assuring them the sport was safe and the crowds were tame. ''We took a bad rap on this thing we should have never taken," said Nicholas Manzello, chairman of the commission. ''In four years we've never had a serious accident. I'm glad that Worcester saw the light."

Though Friday's event went smoothly, the fight between local fighters and officials is far from over. Varner is pledging to hold bouts in cities that have rejected the sport -- because the state regulates the sport, he argues, communities can't ban it. But in other cities, Massachusetts fighters will likely have to overcome the same image problems each time they try to book an event.

''I know they're going to be looking at us with a microscope now," said Ben Doherty, a state boxing commissioner.

Informing the public
One thing both sides agree on is that the time has come for an education about what exactly mixed martial arts is and isn't.

Since its inception in the United States in 1993, mixed martial arts has confronted political opposition. In New York in the mid-to-late 1990s, concerns about ''human cockfighting" echoed through the halls of state government. In North Carolina, one official called the sport ''a form of pornography."

Its image has undergone significant changes in recent years, and mainstream acceptance is growing. Spike TV will begin airing the second season of its highly rated reality show ''Ultimate Fighter" in August, which chronicles the training of 16 contestants who eliminate one another in bouts of mixed martial arts.

But problems persist. A series of recent local media reports about the Roxy event lumped the sport together with ''Tough Man" contests and professional wrestling, two spectacles in which deaths have occurred, usually as a result of amateurs taking risks. To date, no one has died in a sanctioned mixed martial arts bout.

It was also reported that the fights were to take place in a cage, but Doherty said that was incorrect and that the state does not allow it. Instead, fighters face off in a boxing ring (sometimes in an octagon-shaped ring) with four ropes.

The sport took hold in New England in the late '90s in Rhode Island, where there is no athletic commission. Fighters moved to Massachusetts to seek sanctioning so public events could be held. In February 2004, the commission released a 30-page rulebook for referees spelling out what is and isn't allowed in a mixed martial arts bout.

While some states categorically ban ''ultimate fighting," most simply restrict what someone can do in a sanctioned fight. In Massachusetts, for instance, a fighter cannot, among other things, strike with the elbow, knee or kick the head, gouge the eyes, or head-butt.

The image issues that have dogged mixed martial arts have their genesis in its own marketing. When Varner began approving promotional posters for the June 4 show, he allowed phrases such as ''no holds barred," though the state outlaws some 40 means of attack.

''We are not no holds barred -- that's incorrect," Varner said. ''I used that terminology because I thought it was a way to excite people with the show."

Varner was simply following tradition, mimicking the same advertising that the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the country's leading mixed martial arts outfit, used in 1993 to draw pay-per-view watchers for its first few events -- experimental powder kegs in which fighters trained in a range of disciplines were placed in one cage to determine which style was the most dominant.

The posters screamed ''There Are No Rules!" -- although, in fact, eye-gouging and biting were illegal. As different fights between different fighting disciplines unfolded, more blows were outlawed, including head-butting and groin strikes. Twelve years after the first UFC, the company and the Nevada State Athletic Commission, where most of UFC's fights are held, outlaw 31 attacks.

Clyde Gentry, author of ''No Holds Barred: Ultimate Fighting and the Martial Arts Revolution" said that while regulators evolved with the sport, politicians clung to the embryonic version of mixed martial arts, which received widespread publicity at the time. ''If they would just see an actual event," Gentry said, ''I think they would quickly realize that this is completely different from the types of things they're fighting against, things that don't even exist anymore."

Not everyone is convinced that the safety issues have gone away. Dr. Peter W. Carmel, a neurological surgeon and trustee of the American Medical Association, which has called for the outlawing of boxing, has called mixed martial arts ''extremely dangerous."

''I think that it is impossible to say, 'This is safe hand-to-hand combat,' " he told the Globe earlier this year. ''That's like saying, 'This is a safe suicide.' "

Trying again
Officials who halted the mixed martial arts events in Boston and Taunton say they simply want to learn more about the sport and get it properly permitted. Patricia Malone, Boston's director of licensing, said she had not given approval to the 12 prior Avalon fights and wants to hold a hearing before letting another event take place.

''I didn't feel I had enough time to sufficiently look at it," Malone said about the application, filed May 27. ''It was the first time anyone had put in an application [for mixed martial arts]. I got on the website, read some articles about it, and it was my opinion that there is definitely a concern for public safety."

Taunton Mayor George Nunes said organizers have to file an application for a special permit, which the city council has 75 days to rule on. Plus, the venue that was to host the fight owed back taxes and fees to the city, which Nunes said need to be cleared up before any event can take place there. Nunes said he personally doesn't like the sport but added that the issue in Taunton is one of fees and permits.

Varner said that because the state regulates mixed martial arts, there is little that can be done legally to stop fights from taking place.

''If something is law abiding, and if you feel you need to put a stop to it, that's a personal agenda," Varner said. ''These people, it doesn't matter if you educate them to the sport. You can educate them as much as you can, but it's something they have naturally instilled in them, to want to repress."