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5/8/2008
PROVIDENCE - A bill to allow mixed martial arts matches in Rhode Island, co-sponsored by Lincoln's Rep. Peter Petrarca, has cleared the House Corporations Committee and is scheduled for consideration on the floor on Tuesday, May 13.
Mixed martial arts is a reference to a full contact combat sport, sometimes called ultimate fighting, that utilizes the various moves and holds of all the martial arts.
It's become popular in the United States in only recent years and individual states are wrestling with bills like Rhode Island's as they considered making it legal.
Petrarca says he was asked to co-sponsor H-7301 by the bill's sponsor, Rep. John McCauley Jr. of Providence, in order to permit matches at the Dunkin' Donuts Center in Providence. He said the popular matches will be a significant source of revenue.
Petrarca, a Democrat who also represents Smithfield, said it's not his intent to permit the matches at Twin River and an amendment from the floor on the day of vote will include a plan for local veto over matches. Town Administrator T. Joseph Almond said he hadn't researched this bill but said "the underpinning of this sport can be pretty ugly."
He said, however, Lincoln likely won't need to take specific action on mixed martial arts because the Town Council must sign off on every special event held at Twin River.
"I would guess they would never approve it," he said.
Dean Lees Jr., a former Town Council president and 2006 candidate for town administrator, called it "white trash, knuckle-dragging Neanderthal legislation that doesn't belong in Rhode Island or in little Lincoln."
The bill itself offers insight into the sport as it covers everything from clothing that may worn to the size of the fighting area, judging standards and extent of injuries that may be withstood.
Definitions include, for example, choke hold (any hold that impairs the flow of blood or oxygen to the brain); cut man (the person who helps stop the flow of blood from the fighter's cuts by applying coagulants); eye gouge (digging the fingers in and around the opponent's eye); and well as fishhook, foot stomps and head butt.
