Although Governor Andrew Cuomo delivered a hearty knee to the midsection of the "sanction MMA in New York" movement yesterday with his 2011 budget proposal, there's still some hope. Last week the State Senate introduced a bill to legalize pro MMA (which MMA Journalist broke down for you), and not long after, Assemblyman Clifford Crouch introduced a similar bill in the State Assembly. Yesterday, Assemblyman Steve Englebright - who spearheaded the MMA bills that came close to passing the past two years - did the same. So the scorecard is: no love from the governor (and a move to get rid of the position of Chairperson of the State Athletic Commission), one bill in the Senate, and two bills in the Assembly. Keep in mind that both legislative houses have to give their thumbs up and then the governor has to sign the bill into law. Also, keep in mind that last year the Senate passed their MMA bill while the Assembly relegated theirs to subcommittee purgatory, and the year before that the Assembly passed their bill while the Senate had an unrelated political meltdown and did nothing. One last note is that both current Assembly bills have been referred to the Committee on Tourism, Arts and Sports Development, which is where Assemblyman Bob Reilly has been waging a pitched battle to keep "human cockfighting" out of his state - and in 2009 and 2010, Assemblyman Reilly got his ass kicked by a wide margin. The bottom line is, just because the Governor Cuomo refused to "backdoor in" some MMA legislation, there's still hope. Just like there's hope that the Beatles will go on tour with Menudo as their opening act.
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