The latest round in a prize fight between the Las Vegas casino conglomerate that owns the Ultimate Fighting Championship and a hospitality workers union goes to UFC, after union reps pushed unsuccessfully to deny a fight license for a headliner of next Saturday's mixed martial arts extravaganza at the TD Garden — the debut event for new cable channel Fox Sports 1.
The state athletic commission voted yesterday to grant a license to Chael Sonnen, a veteran fighter known for histrionics who in 2011 was fined $10,000 and sentenced to two years' probation after admitting an Oregon real estate transaction he conducted was designed to conceal or disguise proceeds of wire fraud.
Unite Here, which represents Vegas culinary workers, submitted a letter to the commission asking Sonnen be denied because he's been convicted of a "crime involving moral turpitude," a basis for license denial under regulations.
"While the conviction for money laundering may be considered a crime of moral turpitude, the commission is well within its right to consider the totality of the circumstances and allow the license to issue which is what it did," said Terrel Harris, a spokesman for the Department of Public Safety, which oversees the commission.
Unite Here has been at odds since the 1990s with Station Casinos, which is owned by Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta, who also own a controlling interest in the UFC, over efforts to unionize Station's workers. Station spokeswoman Lori Nelson said the company considers the targeting of UFC to be a "corporate harassment tactic" that is actually aimed at Station.
Boston-based members of Unite Here and the National Organization for Women — who protested what they called Sonnen's "shockingly derogatory statements about women, people of color, homosexuals, immigrants and other minorities" — crashed yesterday's commission meeting to testify, but were muffled after testy exchanges with commissioners. Two state troopers were summoned to stand in the hallway after union members hesitated to leave after the commission voted to go into private session.
Unite Here has launched a national campaign to disrupt the UFC, swaying New York lawmakers to uphold a ban in that state on MMA fights, pressuring UFC advertisers to pull out over distasteful behavior and remarks by fighters, and launching a web site called "UFC=Unfit for Children." The union supports a resolution proposed by City Councilor Stephen Murphy, to be debated next week, that would ban minors from attending the Aug. 17 UFC event, a pivotal night for the UFC and its television partner, Fox, because it will be the first live broadcast on Fox Sports 1, a new network designed to challenge ESPN.
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