Atlanta, Georgia is the place I’ve inadvertantly decided to call home for the last ten years or so and I’ve grown to like and enjoy living here and watching the local combat sports community grow exponentially over the last few years. Therefore, the news that MMA in Georgia is now suspended indefinitely makes me wish our secretary of state would take a barefoot walk on a carpet made of live chiggers.
The MMA community in Georgia is in an uproar today thanks to the failure of the Secretary of State to appoint someone to take Andy Foster’s spot as Executive Director of the Georgia Athletic Commission. Georgia’s loss of board commissioner might be California’s embattled commission’s gain, but as a result the entire fight economy in the state of Georgia has been put in an indefiinite holding pattern until the Secretary of State here decides to recognize the importance of appointing a new director.
This means all future fight events to be put in a state of limbo for 2013 until a new director is appointed. At this time this issue seems of little importance to the Secretary of State, but the fighters and promoters that butter their bread and pay their bills with revenue earned from these events are in an uproar. The gym where I trane UFC was riddled with worry faced fighters last night. All of them buzzing about having to travel out of state to take fights in the coming months in order to put money in their wallets and experience in their record books.
In an effort to attempt to show the Secretary of State that the lack of combat sports in Georgia is going to negatively affect many people and is the wrong direction to take in an ever growing revenue generating sport, Jose Santiago from the local cable MMA and combat sports TV show called Inside Punch and Publisher of Georgis fighters magazine is creating a video compilation to send to the Secretary of State as a show of combat sports support. If you want to help the MMA community in Georgia get back to business all you have to do is submit a short (cellphone footage is fine) video stating something like: “My name is (your name) and I support the GAEC! Secretary of State please appoint an adequate Executive Director as soon as possible.” Please email all video to [email protected] by 5pm on Wednesday (tomorrow). Keep MMA alive, nationwide!
