MMA: You Can Call Miguel Torres A Political Pawn

If now former UFC bantamweight Miguel Torres insists on blaming someone other than himself for getting to be one of the 390,000 or so Americans who will file an initial claim for jobless benefits in the coming week, he can look no further than George Pataki.George Pataki?For it was Pataki, then the governor of New York State, who in 1997 gleefully signed into law a bill prohibiting the sanctioning of mixed martial arts in the Empire State. At the signing ceremony, Pataki praised the state legislators for voting to put the proverbial kibosh on what he termed "this Neanderthal blood sport."Fourteen years later, UFC President Dana White is leading the charge to get the ban lifted, so that he can put on events at New York City's hallowed Madison Square Garden. But he faces formidable opposition from both sides of the political/ideological spectrum: From the right, epitomized by self-styled "culture warrior" Bill O'Reilly, and from the left, by the powerful ...