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  - CANADIAN PROMOTER WORKING FOR LEGALIZATION
Wednesday, November 07, 2007 - by Marco Antico - MMAWeekly.com
MMAWeekly caught up with Jack Bateman to speak about the MMA event that took place at the Six Nations Native Reservation in Canada this past weekend. Bateman was one of the individuals who helped run the event, while the financing came from a multi-millionaire business mogul from. Bateman is a student of Warrior Martial Arts in Newmarket, Ontario and works as an electrician during the day although he hopes to one day to become a full-time MMA promoter.
“My primary concern is fighter safety. We did everything we could to help ensure that, including blood work (Hep.A, Hep.B and HIV) and an electrocardiogram (EKG). It’s impossible to get brain scans done quickly here in Ontario, but we’re working on getting this in place for future events,” explained Bateman.
“We had a ringside doctor, who was amazing, and we even had a guy disqualified for not passing his medicals. The referee for all the fights was International Fight League fighter, Wojtek Kaszowski, who did an incredible job. We didn’t allow any booze at the event either.”
All reports from spectators seem to indicate that the show ran very smooth and that the promoters treated the fighters extremely well.
“Our intention is to run a premier MMA event. Our next show is tentatively planned for Jan. 26 and we’re also considering expanding to Calgary, Edmonton and Quebec. Our financier is also very interested in holding shows overseas in Asia. With the money we have backing us, I don’t think it would take us long to become the country’s biggest promotion,” Bateman elaborated. “This show cost us about $100,000 and we pretty much broke even on it. Having already covered our overhead costs, including lawyer fees, we anticipate that the next show will start making us money, for sure.”
“There’s only so much we can do right now in Ontario by holding shows on native reserves and that’s why we’re doing everything we can to legalize the sport here. We hope to follow what Quebec did by first holding shows on reserves, thus putting pressure on the government to open it up professionally. We have lawyers on retainers who all concur that what we’re doing is perfectly legal under section 83 of Canada’s Criminal Code and we’re willing to fight it out in the courts if necessary.”
Section 83 states that prize fighting is illegal unless it is a boxing contest held under the authority of an athletic commission whose authority is established by the legislature of a province.
Bateman’s lawyers are essentially asserting two things. Firstly, that the term boxing encompasses MMA as supported by the fact that there are other provinces that interpret it as such. Secondly, the athletic commission formed on the Six Nations Reserve has the authority to sanction MMA events in the province of Ontario.
“Ken Hayashi (Ontario’s Athletic Commissioner) called the police demanding that they charge us under section 83. They informed him that he should contact the native police instead. I’m not sure what the result of that conversation was, but I do know that we have the full support of the native police. In fact, they were sitting in the front row of the event,” said Bateman emphatically.
The bottom line for MMA in Ontario seems to be that these shows on Native Reserves will continue and likely only get bigger and more frequent. While the promoters behind Rumble on the Rez appear to have upstanding intentions and are being commended on their first show, it remains to be seen if future promoters now eying the native reserve lands in Ontario will meet the bar set by this promotion.
For the rest of Ontario, MMA remains in the hands of the Ontario Athletic Commission in accordance with the Ontario Athletics Control Act. It has been their official position for some time now that amateur MMA and amendments to Section 83 would have to come before professional MMA.
Commissioner Ken Hayashi told MMAWeekly in a previous interview that, “there was no way” these events on native land were going to change anything for the rest of Ontario.
Accordingly, it appears that the rest of Ontario relies on two things: the commencement of amateur MMA and the amendment of section 83. The Canadian Mixed Martial Arts Association is a not-for-profit organization working with the Ministry of Health Promotions in an effort to establish amateur MMA in Ontario.
Section 83 is a federal law, which takes an exorbitant amount of time to amend, although there is a proposed amendment (initiated six years ago), which is on the federal lawmakers to do list. In short, professional MMA in Ontario still seems a long way away.
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