By FCF Staff

Although the Ultimate Fighting Championship’s legal challenge of New York State’s ban on professional MMA has been dismissed, the judge presiding over the case has reportedly conceded the law is vaguely written.

On Monday, the UFC announced that it’s lawsuit challenging the ban has been dismissed, due to what the promotion said was a “technicality”. The statement also relayed that Judge Kimba Wood has advised the:

UFC to “consider filing new vagueness claims.”  She said that the Attorney General’s “recent statements that the Ban prohibits sanctioned MMA” were made “despite [the law’s] plain language to the contrary.”

The Court’s decision confirms that New York law allows sanctioned professional MMA and that the AG is wrong in prohibiting it. UFC is a responsible corporate citizen and has chosen not to act contrary to the AG’s position, even though that position is legally unsustainable.

UFC, through the legislative process, has worked for years to have professional MMA legalized in New York, as it is in every other state in the nation.  New York’s law was passed in 1997, when MMA was in its infancy and lacked the safety regulations that the UFC has introduced over the last decade.

The poorly written law, as interpreted by the State Athletic Commission, prohibits professional MMA, but allows (without State regulation) martial arts events that combine martial arts styles, like K-1 and Muay Thai. Also the law – which the AG conceded in this lawsuit does not prohibit amateur MMA – leaves amateur MMA wholly unregulated, a fact the Association Boxing Commissioners have condemned.

The UFC and other organizations continue to campaign for pro MMA to be sanctioned in New York, and the consensus seems to be that political momentum is building in that respect. Recently UFC President Dana White reported that the promotion is holding a date at Madison Square Garden in NYC for later this year.