Chris Weidman Gets Brooklyn's Approval in Support of MMA in New York

Story by Simone Wilson

Photo via Chris Weidman/Twitter

DOWNTOWN BROOKLYN, NY — Brooklyn Borough President Eric Adams announced Tuesday that he and Brett Yormark, CEO of Barclays Center, would be throwing their weight behind the battle to legalize professional Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighting in the state of New York.

This Tuesday afternoon, Adams, Yormark and Chris Weidman — former Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) middleweight champion and Baldwin native/Dix Hills resident— will be raising a ruckus outside Barclays, wannabe home to future UFC fights.

These fights “ would generate an estimated $135 million each year in the state’s economy, in addition to $5.4 million in state and local revenues,” according to the borough president’s office.

Professional MMA fighting is currently legal in all 49 other states.

A bill to legalize MMA fighting in New York was approved by the State Senate earlier this month, and is now up for approval by the State Assembly.

The same bill has reportedly reached this same critical point seven times in the past eight years. But here’s what‘s different this time around, according to the New York Daily News:

Gov. Cuomo has for the first time included a provision in his state budget proposal for the sport’s legalization. And backers believe they finally have enough support among the Assembly Democrats, who have refused to take the measure up in previous years, to get it done this year.

Newsweek reported last year that the main roadblock for New York’s MMA legalization bill in years past has been state politicians who cater to Unite Here, a New York-based umbrella organization repping several unions. One of those unions is Culinary Union Local 226, which, the story goes, has been fighting tooth and nail to unionize workers at a chain of Nevada casinos owned by the same two dudes who own UFC.

As UFC President Dana White claimed at a 2011 press conference:

“It has nothing to do with mixed martial arts the reason that we’re not in New York. It has to do with the Culinary Union. The Culinary Union is spending millions of dollars of all these people who pay dues to keep us out of there because my partners, the Fertitta brothers, are the largest non-union gaming company in the country. So these union idiots, all these people work in the Culinary Union, pay their money towards dues, this is what all their money’s being spent towards. Fighting the UFC from coming there and bringing money into the state of New York.”