Vice: A fight over fighting and sovereignty in Indian Country

In the eyes of the federal government, tribes and states have carte blanche when it comes to MMA--there is no Mother Goose watching over them. Instead, the rules of MMA are engrained in state and/or local governmental bodies. Currently, MMA is regulated in most states by a boxing or athletic commission. The Association of Boxing Commissions is a private non-governmental entity made up of a majority of states and 20 tribal regulatory bodies. All members have a vote on combat sports policy, even though the ABC has no real oversight or authority. The ABC can’t force a state or tribal athletic commission to take certain actions, just as Google can’t force California to do something; the aim of the ABC is merely to provide standards for a sport that lacks uniformity in its rules and their application. But the tension between governing bodies like the ABC and tribal authorities predates MMA and is just a small part of a larger, and longstanding, problem.

Indian tribes are not well understood in the United States. The general populace does not see them as autonomous governmental entities. But they are. And since MMA is only regulated by governments, Indian tribes have the authority to set forth their own rules and regulations. This sets the stage for conflicts between states, Indian tribes, and the ABC, particularly in the south, the front lines of the growth of the sport.

The ABC will say that most of the unsanctioned fighting out there is happening on tribal land, but that’s true only because most of those tribes don’t have organized gaming commissions or have such poor relations with state governments that no government-to-government agreement regarding MMA regulation can be reached. This is a huge problem because the infusion of revenue and consumer spending brought in by MMA is vital to tribal communities, where unemployment rates dwarf the national average.