In the last eight years since achieving my childhood dream and turning professional in the sport in of MMA I have witnessed a great many changes to our sport of mixed martial arts, both for the good and bad.

In 1995 the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) was the most popular selling Pay-per-View (PPV) event on television, even setting a PPV record at the time. Sadly just three years later UFC/MMA struggled to stay on satellite as the sport was banned from cable, namely TCI/Time Warner, for political conquests.

When I first turned pro in 1994 this sport was just gaining national recognition, unfortunately that recognition was for the negative aspects associated with the marketing of the sport, not for the talents of the athletes. As MMA became less and less accessible by way of television, our numbers were growing at a grass roots level at an unstoppable pace; our martial artists and athletes were demanding to compete and participate.

With this demand a new sport was born and a new breed of martial artist and athlete.

During those times of struggle with the cable companies we became an easy target for politicians to step on us on their way to the top. How can we blame them, after all our sport was initially advertised as " No Holds Barred", "There are NO Rules" and "Anything Goes".

It was during these tumultuous times that instead of tearing our sport apart, WE, as a community joined together to make the merits of our sport and our athletes known to the general public.

Everyone did their part.

• Our fans started an e-mail coalition and a letter campaign to various cable carriers and political entities.
• The fighters took pay cuts to keep the show alive. In 1998 SEG (former owners of the UFC) approached me and basically told us they could not afford to pay the guaranteed contract they negotiated with me. I took a 40% pay cut, so we could have a show. Every fighter has this same story in some facet.
• The promoters did their part by changing the rules to appease the commissions, and creating the Mixed Martial Arts Council with Mr. Jeff Blatnick to regulate the sport. In fact in 1998 SEG sent Jeff Blatnick and I to New York City to attend a charity benefit for Cable Positive. Our goal was speak to Leo Hindry then president of TCI/Time Warner, about why we were not allowed on cable. SEG paid all expenses plus donated $10,000.00 (ten thousand) dollars to charity so we could have a table near Leo Hindry. We cornered him and asked the question. His answer? When this becomes a sport, you will be back on cable.

The efforts of our community are what has deemed us a sport and put us back on cable.

Now that we are being given this recognition as a real sport, we must strive to emulate the standards and ethics of other American sports.

As a true sport we will require some sort of regulation to protect our athletes…and our fans.

When I heard what happened at the Ultimate Athlete event (UA) at the Morongo casino, I was outraged. How could UA let this happen? Who is regulating these athletes so promoters can’t take advantage of them and fans don’t get hurt? Who are these promoters and what right do they have to use our fighters and all of their hard work for a quick buck?

If our sport were more organized and evolved we could tell who belonged in the ring and who did not. As for the athletes they are the first ones to be affected by events like the UA incident, and the last ones to get paid.

Just today I read in the Wrestling Observer that BJ Penn donated $10,000.00 (ten thousand) dollars to the 9/11 FUND because he had said that "if he got a title fight" he thought "he would win a lot of money and he would donate some money to the Fund". He lost that fight; but kept his word.

These are the kind of athletes that make me proud of being a professional MMA fighter and I believe that MMA athletes are the best in the world, in the ring or out of the ring.

I must admit that I do not follow this sport and its every move on the Internet but it was this sport and the desire to conquer it that made me who I am. I am an exceptionally private person and have always treasured my private life and the quietness that it brought . I never really wanted to be famous, I just wanted to be really good at something and this was the result…

With all that said:

I have been approached in an advisory capacity by several State Athletic Commissions who are all jointly concerned about the safety of the athletes. They feel that we have proven the merits of a real sport but that we need some kind regulation. We need to monitor, promote, and protect our sport and athletes.

I would like your help as a community to create a regulatory organization whose primary goal is to protect our athletes and their futures.

Please send your comments on how to create a regulatory organization, and or suggestions, and advice to the following e-mail: MMASPORTS@HOTMAIL.COM

• If you would like to volunteer your man or woman power for this cause I expect that we will need the following:
  1. Clerical Duties
  2. Webmaster, etc..
  3. Legal Advice
  4. Research

Main event:
4 round Kickboxing Heavyweight State title bout
Freddy Meddellin (Maurice Smith Kickboxing) vs. Joey Guel (Victory Athletics)

Semi-Main event:
One 10-minute round Tag team submission bout
Team Maurice Smith (Roman Roytberg & Pat Hawk)
VS.
Team AMC (Ivan Salavary & Aaron Riley)

FEMALE KICKBOXING BOUT
Deannie Williams VS Christina Linn (Kickboxing)

Luis Guillen VS. Sean Sanada (Submission)
James Barnette VS. Dareon Denison (Muay Thai)
John Hall VS. "Jody" (Submission)
Adam Dreller VS. Jamie Stewart (Kickboxing)
Tony Sablan VS. Mark Ashton (Submission)
Morgan Hefper VS. John day (Kickboxing)

Tickets on sale now at Maurice Smith’s Kickboxing Center (425) 576-5300 and AMC Kickboxing (425) 822-9656. Tickets are $25 Reserved Ringside and $20 General Admission.

This week on the "No Holds Barred News" segment on WBAI radio’s "Lightshow" we will be hearing from Cael himself along with his legendary coach, Bobby Douglas, both of whom I interviewed shortly after Cael notched his 159th win at the 2002 NCAA Division 1 Wrestling Championships, held March 21-23 in Albany, NY.

"Lightshow" airs weekly late Friday night/early Saturday morning, 3-5 AM Eastern Time. The "No Holds Barred News" segment airs in the second hour of the show, between 4 AM and 5 AM EST, early Saturday morning, April 6. This week’s segment is prerecorded.

WBAI broadcasts in New York on 99.5 FM. For those not in the New York area, WBAI can also be heard live on the Internet. There are two sites that stream the signal: http://www.wbai.org/ and http://www.2600.com/wbai. At this time broadcasts of "Lightshow" are not archived, but we are working on getting these audio interviews posted.

We also have an e-mail address for our segment on: nhblightshow@yahoo.com.

WBAI is a 50,000 watt, non-commercial station. This means that, unlike the advertiser-supported media, our opinions are not restrained by any commercial interests.