Combatants Tak Susaki and Rami Kadi meet in the centre of the red mat. Muscles tighten as they plant their feet. They touch fists and the fight is on.

Kadi dives for Susaki, attempting to hurl him to the ground. Arms twist like pythons. Fingers grasp at flesh.

The fighters’ bodies meld, each bracing for a mistake from his foe. Sweating, red-faced, they tussle – locking shoulders, shoving back and forth, spinning away, locking shoulders again.

“Wham!” Susaki hits the mat. Kadi lunges, hungry for anything unguarded. He pries an arm, looking for a submission hold.

This physical chess match is known as Mixed Martial Arts, or MMA.

Susaki and Kadi want to fight professionally, but first their sport must first grapple with municipal city halls – the latest being the City of North Vancouver (CNV).

‘Blood sport’

With no provincial athletic commission to regulate MMA and other combat sports, the onus is on individual municipalities to create overseeing bodies required to host professional bouts. The commissions deal with unifying rules to ensure fighter safety, referee and judge training and ensure event promoters have adequate liability insurance to cover all involved parties.

Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), the brand that’s spurred massive growth in MMA, is pushing for Vancouver’s athletic commission to sanction the sport, currently banned in its jurisdiction. While the UFC has tentatively scheduled fights at GM Place next summer, the City of North Van seems closer to actually hosting a pro card.

Last month, after a presentation from Canadian Boxing Federation and International Sports Combat Federation members, North Van council voted 5-2 to revive its dormant athletic commission, paving the way for a year-long trial for hosting events like MMA, which critics dub a “blood sport.”

North Vancouver aikido martial art instructor Joel Pusluns is one such critic.

“I don’t think (North Van) council really thought this through. I think they said, ‘Well, it’s a small group, who really cares if they want to bash each other around?’ But there is a much bigger implication and that is what I am trying to get everybody to look at,” says Pusluns.

The instructor of 20 years moved from California to set up a dojo in North Van, partially based on the city’s high regard for family values – values Pusluns worries will be threatened by the introduction of professional MMA events, which he equates to dog fighting.

Not only does MMA veer from the essence of martial arts, which were developed to protect the weak and not for personal gain, but it also sets out a welcome mat for violent fans, Pusluns told The Outlook.

“All you are going to get is people who like spectacle – people who like to see blood on the ground, and then the guys who practice MMA, whose fantasy is to get up in a cage match where they can do a victory lap while the other guy is lying in a pool of blood.”

The allure

The potential for blood is definitely part of MMA’s appeal, just like the potential for twisted metal in stock car racing, says Saul Miller, a North Shore sports psychologist.

In a world where the threshold for violence continues to rise exponentially, along with hunger for stimulation, MMA offers a quick fix.

“I think it satisfies the popular appetite for athletics, violence, diversity and quick results,” Miller says, noting that the gladiator-type sport answers the question of what happens if a wrestler was pitted against a boxer, or karate expert against a jujitsu specialist.

“There is something inherently exciting for people watching two mortals in combat. It taps our basic roots.”

MMA’s speed and rawness is a winning combination at the box office. The dollar volume of sales for a recent event, UFC 100, was double that of the famous 2007 boxing bout between Floyd Mayweather Junior versus Oscar De La Hoya, according to data from ticket resellers website company StubHub. And more than four times the number of tickets were sold for the MMA event than the Mayweather-De La Hoya bout.

It’s the diversity of MMA that drew Susaki, a former kickboxer, to the sport, he says.

“It’s also the attitude that the other athletes have – it’s very respectful.”

Kadi agrees. He used to box, but switched to MMA because the workout is more intense. The intensity of the training and the matches themselves thread a bond between fighters. Long hours of training culminate in a few minutes of fighting inside “the octagon.”

“The feeling of getting into the ring, it’s like nothing else.”

Safety factor

Regardless of the controversy surrounding MMA, illegal fighting events are taking place within the city, said Canadian Boxing Federation judge Michael Pattenaude, now chair of North Van’s revived commission.

Event organizers may not purposefully mean to break the law, but with so many different governing bodies and the previous mish-mash of rules it’s not hard to trip up, he said.

The commission’s goal is to bring those matches under its umbrella to ensure safety for both fighters and fans.

“There has been a problem in the past that these events go on regardless. We want to regulate the events and make them safer.”

Safety is also paramount on the mind of chiropractic doctor Philippe MacInnes, who has acted as a ring-side doctor for MMA matches.

More than a decade ago, MMA owned its human cock-fighting reputation, but since the sport’s popularity has grown, so too has the list of rules, says MacInnes. Today the sport is highly regulated and in many ways safer than sports such as boxing, in which the entire goal is a knockout.

“I was working with wrestlers and football players and I’ve worked with national rugby players as well. I really don’t see any significantly greater amount of injuries (in MMA) than any of those sports.”

The lack of padding leads to superficial cuts and people often incorrectly equate blood with the severity of an injury, MacInnes suggests, who also sits on North Van’s athletic commission.

Fighting chance

Boxing and martial arts organizations have already shown interest in coming to the City of North Vancouver, says Jim Tessman, a representative from the International Sports Combat Federation who also has a seat on the North Van commission.

“The plan is to start out with the City of North Vancouver because they do have some sizable venues, like the rec centre. The next move is to approach the district because within the district is Capilano University.”

Susaki and Kadi say that’s exciting news for members of the more than 20 North Shore martial arts gyms.

The lack of professional fighting on the North Shore often sends its champions – such as UFC fighter Denis Kang and kickboxing champions Michael McDonald and Blake Lirette – to Eastern Canada or overseas.

“We are still really playing catch up,” says Jackson Loychuk, Kadi and Susaki’s coach and owner of Wolfes Den MMA. “We are making progress. (Vancouver hosting the UFC) will be huge for sure. It will leapfrog MMA forward.”

Kadi and Susaki hope to follow Kang’s lead into the UFC, a difficult feat they admit, but one made easier with North Van’s ruling.

Now rested, the two get ready for more training. Their workout has just begun; they have at least two more hours of grappling and striking on the 200-pound drop bags.

“Work, sleep, train,” Kadi jokes before beating out a set of punches on the speed bag.

Technical submission

North Van councillor Bob Fearnley voted against the revival of the city’s athletic commission and although the sport’s violent nature was a factor, it wasn’t his main reason.

“We have appointed an athletic commission to be in charge of these things, but we never went public,” he says. “We never asked for a request for people who might want to sit on the commission.”

Council set no date for the commission’s report on the year-long trial and the people who will be presenting the report are the proponents of the sport, Fearnley explained.

As with all municipal advisory committees and commissions, a council and staff representative will have a seat at the table, the commission’s chair Michael Pattenaude said, who has sat on other municipal advisory committees.

Council’s recent decision is by no way unprecedented, City of North Vancouver Mayor Darrell Mussatto said. Last time the commission was up and running, its members consisted of similar sports enthusiasts, he said.

The city will make sure that the final report includes opinions from municipal staff and its recreation department, Mussatto added.

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