The Real Violence This Time

The very same people who were gnawing their nails down to the knuckles over WWE’s pretend violence during the Linda McMahon insurgency are nodding yes to a bill that will legalize “mixed martial arts” in Connecticut, according to a report in the trustworthy Hartford Courant: “A bill to legalize and regulate ‘mixed martial arts’ gained committee approval Tuesday, with only a handful of members on the Public Safety & Security Committee voting against it.”

Not everyone is as sanguine as members of Connecticut’s Public Safety & Security Committee.

Last January, Chicago women’s groups and national organizations “sent a letter to the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), FOX executives, and UFC sponsors demanding the cage fighting franchise and television network immediately drop UFC light heavyweight Quinton ‘Rampage’ Jackson from the Saturday January 26, 2013 UFC on FOX fight for repeatedly denigrating women, including female reporters, and posting a video last year in which he makes light of sexual assault by pretending to rape a woman in a parking garage. To view the letter, click here.

And in the same month the National Center for Domestic and Sexual Violence wrote to members of the New York State Assembly urging them to reject legislation that would sanction mixed martial arts, according to Sports Ilustrated.

"We believe that the UFC contributes to a culture of violence against women and lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) people," executive director Deborah B. Tucker wrote. "Children, in particular, should not be exposed to the homophobic, misogynistic and violent language that has been permitted by the UFC."

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