Despite having a strong opposition, albeit by an uneducated Representative, South Dakota House passed a bill to create a fight commission 50-20. This puts the state on track to regulating fighting sports.

As we have heard this past week, Rep. Steve Hickey, R-Sioux Falls, tried to kill the bill because he believed that MMA is the “child porn of sports”. Still can’t wrap my head around that one. He tried to even compensate with the his fellow representatives by allowing a commission to be created to oversee other combat sports such as karate and boxing, but draw the line at mixed martial arts.

“Just the visceral perception from the average person is, this thing is violent,” said Rep. Steve Hickey. “I just can’t imagine us giving the green light to this and bringing in this industry.”

The House, obviously realizing that sanity was the better course of action, rejected Hickey’s amendment by a large margin, 43-27. Rep. Dean Schrempp, D-Lantry, backed the bill to create the commission and said, “Once we get it regulated, we shouldn’t have no more problems with it, or at least not as many as we have now.”

Apart of the bill some of the regulations that the newly created commission could impose would be medical personnel at fights, insurance for bouts, blood tests for fighters, and mandatory bans for fighters who sustain concussions. All the regulations are reasonable and logical, and keep the most important piece of the equation number one; fighter safety.

The Senate and the House have now approved the creation of the fight commission called Senate Bill 84, and it will soon come across Gov. Dennis Daugaard’s desk. He has strongly opposed the bill from the beginning. Daugaard could sign the bill, veto it, or let it become law without his signature.  In any case, both houses of the Legislature passed bill with margins sufficient to override any veto.

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