UFC 97 Currently In Jeopardy Due To QAC

UFC 97 is scheduled to take place on April 18th at the Bell Centre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

The UFC has been eager to return to Montreal after the mega-successful UFC 83 event, which saw Georges St. Pierre regain his Welterweight title from Matt Serra in the main event. UFC 83 broke the attendance record for a UFC event and ended up generating over $5 million dollars in total ticket sales.

Dana White ranted and raved about the crowd at the event, and promised that the UFC would return to the city as soon as humanly possible.

Unfortunately, the UFC's second Montreal event is now in jeopardy due to the QAC (Quebec Athletic Commission).

According to Sportsnet.ca, the QAC is "re-evaluating rules that govern the sport of mixed martial arts within the province". The QAC have apparently informed UFC officials that the UFC must adhere to the QAC's rules or else they will not be able to hold their event in Quebec.

The QAC had been following the Unified Rules of MMA up to this point, but apparently will now be "following the rules of Quebec", according to Rejean Theriault, director of communications for the combat sports division of the RACJ (Governing Body of Alcohol, Races and Games of Quebec) (Source: Sherdog.com)

According to the Sportsnet article, the "rules of Quebec" would include:

-banning elbow and knee strikes
-forcing a referee to halt a fight if a fighter gets knocked to the ground, to ensure that he is ok
-utilizing a much smaller cage than what the UFC currently uses (the "Octagon")

Now, the UFC would obviously not hold UFC 97 in Quebec if these changes were implemented.

Things will have to get ironed out quickly, as UFC 97 is just over 2 months away.

Marc Ratner, Vice President of Regulatory Affairs for the UFC, is apparently confident that things will get ironed out.

If things don't get straightened out in a week, then I would expect that the UFC will announce that the show will be taking place in Las Vegas, and start the process of refunding ticket purchases. There have been over 13,000 tickets sold for this event already, and tickets just went on sale earlier this week.

UFC 97 features a co-main event of Anderson "The Spider" Silva vs Thales Leites, and Chuck Liddell vs Mauricio "Shogun" Rua.

Source: Sportsnet.ca - UFC's Montreal Return in Jeopardy?

Play Poker - Receive a $600 Bonus