Connecticut Sponsor of MMA Legalization Won’t Comment on Wrestling Regulation
Hits Keep Coming From WWE – Where They Don’t Do Chair Shots to the Head Except When They Do
April 6, 2011‘NFL Labor Negotiations Aren’t Just a Bilateral Affair’ (full text from Beyond Chron)
April 7, 2011The Connecticut state representative who introduced legislation to legalize mixed martial arts won’t comment on parallel efforts to regulate the pro wrestling industry, which is dominated by one of the state’s most powerful corporations, World Wrestling Entertainment.
But that hasn’t stopped Matt Lesser, the Democrat representing Connecticut’s 100th district, from using Twitter for half-assed non sequiturs on the links between the two issues.
Three days ago Daniela Altimari of the Hartford Courant retweeted my item about Triple H’s head chair shot to the Undertaker at WrestleMania. “According to Muchnick, #WWE brings back chair shots to the head,” “@capitolwatch” posted.
Representative Lesser then recirculated that tweet with this added comment: “And yet MMA is still not legal in CT.”
Yet for the second time in two months, Lesser did not respond to a query I emailed to his office. It seems that it’s easier to hit the RT button on your Twitter app than it is to formulate coherent public policy.
Irv Muchnick
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It’s worth noting that the dangers of sub-concussive blows, repeat concussions and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy apply to all contact sports and entertainment forms including MMA. So far the issue has largely been ignored by the promoters, MMA media and athletic commissions regulating the sport, despite several fighters committing suicide at a young age (including one murder suicide) and a couple of deaths due to brain trauma too. Has Lesser done any research into whether a chair shot to the head is safer than diving punches to the head of a grounded opponent, the latter of which cannot be banned from MMA as it’s part and parcel of the sport? That isn’t to say MMA shouldn’t be legalised in Connecticut, but Lesser should knock off the cheap political point scoring tweets, especially if he has no real interest in regulating wrestling (or MMA properly).