Posted Mar 29, 2010, 2:32 AM
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Join Date: Aug 2008
Location: Vancouver
Posts: 1,977
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Quote:
City of Vancouver shows just how bush league it is - MMA Expo canceled
By Chris Parry 28 Mar 2010
The province of British Columbia has spent about $800m building a world class convention centre to attract the corporations, tourists and business travelers of the world, but the knuckleheads at Vancouver City Hall have just pushed away an event that would have attracted around 10,000 people to the PNE forum when they told Gerry Chopik that his MMA Expo would not be welcome at the criminally underused venue if he opted to feature Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu demonstrations, exhibition grappling and MMA competitor assessments.
These are all, of course, completely legal sporting activities in Vancouver - or anywhere else - because they're done on an amateur basis. But the Ray Louie-directed PNE signed a deal with Chopik to host his show, only to turn around a day later and tell him that he wouldn't be allowed to stage anything but product booths at the event.
Chopik, rightly, told them to go to hell and pulled down the shutter on an event that would have brought companies from across North America, celebrities from across the world, and visitors from all over the west coast.
Back to Toronto goes the Expo, and MMA enthusiasts in this city continue to be told by their elected leaders that they're gang members who can't be trusted to watch a demonstration of martial arts.
If the city doesn't push through on April 6th and finally allow the Vancouver Athletic Commission to regulate the sport they said months ago they welcomed, the UFC will shift it's planned June 12 GM Place show to Calgary a week later, and Vancouver will never see the millions of dollars that follow a UFC event, nor the associated industries of gyms, promoters, trainers, fighters, and associated equipment trying so darn hard to set up shop here.
If Ray Louie has such a hate on for MMA that he'll turn away millions of dollars, a taxpaying industry, and a freaking international convention rather than offend his tender sensibilities, he needs to be put in his place NOW by Mayor Gregor Robertson or a very motivated MMA fanbase will turn out in numbers to toss these bureaucratic bunglers aside.
Mark my words, if UFC 115 goes to Calgary and Vancouver is left looking like an international embarrassment, Vision Vancouver won't just have irate voters to contend with, they'll have an international reputation, built so high by the Olympics, quickly turn to crap.
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Source: Vancouver Sun
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Do we still have the reputation of not being able to "handle" these events? Vision, our parents, are still keeping us grounded despite being on relatively GOOD BEHAVIOR!
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