When Dana White went on CNBC Tuesday to announce a deal to sell action figures, he dropped hints about a major announcement coming today. It won't be, though, and has been pushed back to Tuesday which has a lot of people thinking that it was related to a vote in the New York State Assembly yesterday. The committee on Tourism, Arts and Sports Development held a vote to decide whether or not New York should regulate and, therefore, legalize mixed martial arts in the state. It was widely believed that the bill would pass and then make its way to the larger Assembly but ran into trouble. A poster at MMAweekly was in the chamber.
One of the Assembly members prefaced the bill with the typical arguments against, calling it savagely brutal, and making the argument that if we ban cockfighting, MMA should be banned too. Other members were so clueless, some asked if there was even a referee involved in the matches!
The bill was voted down, said poster reported. MMAjunkie, however, reports that the bill wasn't voted down but simply put aside and will be reconsidered next week. There are reports of members looking to change their votes after the bill failed and other machinations that come as no surprise, speaking as a lifelong New Yorker, given the oily way Albany operates.
What's that got to do with Dana White? According to Five Ounces of Pain, the big announcement was going to be tied into legalization in New York and, likely, a UFC event in Madison Square Garden. Should things turn their way in Albany before now and Tuesday, it still could be the big announcement.
However, Dave Meltzer reports that White told reporters in London that the announcement has nothing to do with New York and that he needs to tell his employees before making the news public. Running a show at the Garden wouldn't seem to qualify as that kind of news but who knows. This whole thing is harder to follow than the last Matrix movie.
At any rate, no big announcement today but when and if New York ever gets its act together, expect the announcement of a UFC show at MSG, presumably with a killer card, shortly thereafter.
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