MMA amateur licensing for better or worse?

Question

They just recently started "licensing" in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and me and mine are licensed, but my question is what do think of the little details of state licenses nation wide? I mean why is there no "minimum skills requirement" clauses built into these license applications? I personally believe that no one should be in that cage with out at least three ( 3 ) full years of training from a qualified instructor. That's my own personal belief, but at least something close to that kind of clause. I keep seeing these new kids get in there and get majorly hurt because they have no skills what so ever other than what they call "street fighting". "licensing amateur fighters" makes no sense if there's no "minimum skills requirement" clause in the application for a license. I've been slowly become an opponent against cage fights, even as a coach, for just these types of things. When it becomes a money game there's really no sport to it is there?

Answer 1

Yeah some crazy BS huh? I went to one of the Caged Inferno events here in Kentucky I guess 5 or 6 months ago and wanted to go slap the well you know what out of a couple of the coaches. A few of these kids were only like 19 or 20 and got in the cage and right off the bat you could tell they had never even been through any hard sparring. Some of them were just closing their eyes and reaching out trying to just grab at an opponent they couldn't see. It is crazy to think that there aren't any requirements for minimum skills, but that's government for you, all they are seeing is "Hey this is getting popular, we should require them to get licensed to compete. So what if they get hurt, the state and city gets money!!!" It sucks, but what are you going to do.

I have been to several of the Caged Inferno events and I am not trying to down them, they don't have any idea what these kids can or can't do. The coaches that throw some of these poor kids to the wolves that way though should be ashamed and so should the state for saying that they are trying to make it more legitimate when all they are really doing is covering their butt and making money off them.

Come to think of it, I may have seen you in the corner of 1 or 2 of the guys at a few Caged Inferno shows I have been to. E-mail me or something the next time you have some of your guys fighting, like to check some of your guys out.