An Overview of East Coast MMA
Published by Jim Genia on March 4th, 2009 in History

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In 1996 there was BAMA Fight Night, an unsanctioned Shootfighting and no-holds-barred event in Northern New Jersey where Matt and Nick Serra got their start. Promoter Lou Neglia began adding limited-rules bouts to his New York and New Jersey kickboxing cards in 2000 (where Phil Baroni first fought), and his long-running Ring of Combat event debuted in 2002 in Connecticut before settling permanently in the Garden State. Kipp Kollar’s Mass Destruction and Reality Fighting came to Massachusetts and New Jersey in 2001 and 2002, respectively, and by 2007 Felix Martinez’s ill-fated Cage Fury Fighting Championship was packing 7,300 fans into Atlantic City’s Boardwalk Hall for Kimbo Slice’s first MMA outing. Though the UFC and organizations such as World Extreme Cagefighting, King of the Cage, Sportfighting and Gladiator Challenge call the West Coast home, the East Coast has always been a hotbed of mixed martial arts.

The New Jersey State Athletic Control Board began regulating MMA back in 2000 and thus far the UFC has been to New Jersey only eight times, but through the years there have been a number of International Fight League events, Mixed Fighting Championships (the precursor to BodogFIGHT) and numerous other regional pro shows. Add to that the events at the Mohegan Sun casino in Connecticut and the wealth of low- to mid-level shows in Massachusetts, as well as the countless sanctioned amateur affairs cranking out fight cards every couple months since 2006 (when the NJSACB legalized amateur MMA), and you have a vibrant scene where fans nowadays can see some incarnation of limited-rules combat at least once every two or three weeks. What of fighters looking to work their way up to the “big show”?

Statistically, Ring of Combat – which had its twenty-third edition on February 20th – has been the biggest Octagon stepping stone, with athletes such as Jim and Dan Miller, Pete “Drago” Sell, Luke Cummo, Mike Massenzio, Dante Rivera, Chris Liguori and more getting their big breaks after turning in stellar performances. Combat in the Cage gave us slugger Jon Murphy, who, along with Brett Rogers, took part in the first-ever MMA bout broadcast live on network television (i.e., EliteXC’s “Saturday Night Fights” on CBS). Prior to his UFC run, light-heavyweight brawler Tim Boetsch was crushing foes in Monte Cox’s Extreme Challenge whenever that promotion ventured east, and even international star Eddie Alvarez got his start in the world of East Coast MMA, winning a belt in Reality Fighting before getting scooped up by the “bigger boys” of the industry. The list goes on.

Sadly, not every fighter makes it, and not every organization has shown resilience and longevity. EliteXC held events it Atlantic City and Newark before it died. Ring of Combat may be thriving to this day, but the aforementioned Cage Fury Fighting Championship crashed and burned when a financial backer dried up. Reality Fighting and Combat in the Cage migrated to other states (New Hampshire and Delaware, respectively). One-shot wonder YAMMA (the product of UFC founder Bob Meyrowitz) withered on the vine. BodogFIGHT simply fizzled out, and though the IFL seemed to focus on the East Coast market towards the end, nothing could prevent it from collapsing under its own non-revenue generating weight. But the vast number of fans eager to shell out cash to see fights remains steady.

“I still believe the East Coast is a sleeping giant,” says Keith Evans, who was the IFL’s Vice President of Operations before it went under. Of the organization’s last four events, three were on the East Coast, with 7,077 fans packing into the Izod Center in East Rutherford, New Jersey to see one of their final installments. Evans is currently a behind-the-scenes honcho for the World Cagefighting Alliance, a super-regional show that premiered in Atlantic City last month. A crowd of close to 2,000 came out to see the WCA’s card of top local fighters take on representatives from such camps as Team Quest and American Top Team – a testament to the drawing power of local fighters and the strength of the East Coast market. And once New York (inevitably) legalizes the sport, the market will only grow deeper, a fact not lost on promotions like the WCA and Ring of Combat, who are poised to bring their brand of MMA to the once-forbidden side of the Hudson River (while continuing to hold events in New Jersey).

A look at the calendar reveals a number of shows both big and small for the near future: a World Championship Fighting event in Boston featuring a TUF veteran and an Extreme Challenge in Atlantic City featuring Tara LaRosa in March, a Ring of Combat in April, an Adrenaline show in Atlantic City featuring Tim Sylvia against boxer Ray Mercer in May… the list goes on and on – further proof that the East Coast is an MMA hotbed.