It gets it's fair share of attention...both good and bad. But a South Dakota lawmaker's opposition to Mixed Martial Arts has unleashed a firestorm on social media.
That lawmaker is Sioux Falls State Representative Steve Hickey...who in a very public way compared MMA to child pornography.
Tonight, why he made that comparison and how MMA competitors in Sioux Falls are responding.
At Next Edge Academy in Sioux Falls, Representative Steve Hickey's comparison of MMA to child porn isn't being well received at all.
"Anytime you place such a negative connotation on something...it's....especially that...it's pretty hurtful." Bruce Hoyer is a MMA competitor and trainer. "He was just doing it to grandstand I believe."
Representative Hickey tells me he has never attended a MMA event in person but has seen it on TV and says he doesn't like the bloodlust associated with the sport. "We're feeding something with this sport that we don't need to be feeding. That monster is getting bigger and bigger and it's not just MMA...that is one aspect of violence in our society."
Hickey wants the state to outlaw MMA, but says a similar sport...boxing...should remain in place..in part.... because the state regulates it.
Hickey's opposition comes as a bill is introduced in Pierre...to regulate MMA....something Bruce Hoyer says is needed and should happen. "The best thing that we could get is regulation ...because right now it's unregulated ...there's events going on in the Midwest....South Dakota...that really shouldn't be."
Hickey's comparing MMA to child porn is the object of scorn and ridicule on web sites and message boards nationwide.
Hickey tells me on one hand, he regrets making that comparison..but in the next breathe defends the fact he said it. "I had no idea they were so thin skinned and sensitive but sometimes..I say I regret it...I wish I could have changed my comments...sometimes it takes somebody saying something outrageous like I did for people to wake up and look at this thing and that's all I'm asking."
Bruce Hoyer says MMA gets a bad wrap because of how the sport was promoted in it's early days...when it was largely unregulated and anything did go.
But he says now it is a larger organization that is better managed and operated...with competitors having to submit to medical testing.
