Imagine Jon Jones competing in Madison Square Garden. | Photo: D. Mandel/Sherdog.com
Eric Stinton, contributor: I’ve always felt that the best Christmas gifts are the little ones, the practical presents that make everyday life a smidgen better; I’m a simple man. What I want for Christmas will not result in a broad, sweeping change, but it will make this already great sport a little bit sweeter moving forward. For Christmas, I ask for MMA to finally become legal in the state of New York.
MMA has come a long way since its inception, and the rhetoric of it being too brutal to sanction is tiresome at this point. The sport will continue to exist and thrive with or without the support of New York state legislators, but for the final bulwark to fall, it would mean MMA would finally shed itself of the specter of human cockfighting. The completion of American legalization wouldn’t fundamentally alter the sport's trajectory, but it would put the nail in the coffin of the nagging naysayers, perhaps opening the door for the next chapter in the sport’s grand narrative. That New York is the largest athletic market on the planet makes it all the more meaningful. In a time of unprecedented political division in our country, I think we can all unite around a warm living room, holiday leftovers in our bellies and the beautiful, athletic savagery of a super fight between New York natives Chris Weidman and Jon Jones at Madison Square Garden on the TV screen. Call me a dreamer, but I believe it would be the ideological catharsis we need.
That’s all I want for Christmas, but regardless of what happens, we are blessed to have so much MMA readily accessible.
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