Illinois State Attorney Jim Glasgow Wants To Ban Chokeholds From MMA Competitions

Over the past three decades, MMA has experienced a surge in popularity, especially UFC. Given the fact that it takes years of training in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, wrestling, boxing, and many other disciplines just to compete, said popularity was also met with credibility. However, all the training in the world doesn’t negate how dangerous MMA can be. A recent testament to such a fact can be seen in the latest match Joanna Penne fought in. Current UFC women’s Strawweight champion Joanna Jedrzejczyk showed no quarter as she opened up Penne like a tin can.

The above is just one way an MMA fight can end both dramatically and graphically. However, such endings are now few and far in between given regulations incorporated into the sport, making the days of 30-minute long matches with legal groin kicks and head punts a memory. For an Illinois lawyer, that is still not enough as he seeks to add another part of MMA to regulation by banning it. What’s debilitating is the fact that he wants to ban a major part of an MMA fighter’s repertoire in competitions: chokeholds.

According to the Bloody Elbow, Illinois State attorney Jim Glasgow of Will County is looking to make chokeholds illegal in MMA. Glasgow is backing his crusade with a case from 2013 when Adam Landerman was found guilty of murdering Terrence Rankins and Eric Glover. According to the case’s details, Landerman strangled to death the two victims with technical chokeholds. Apparently, Jim Glasgow believes children could be encouraged to apply dangerous MMA techniques on each other by mimicking them when MMA fighters use them during televised competitions.

Of course, the MMA community finds Jim Glasgow’s reasoning absurd, bringing up similarities to other times a political or legal figure wanted to ban something by linking it to a specific crime. Despite this, Glasgow’s stance eventually lost all its surprise among the MMA community when they found out he also blames video games for violence among youngsters.

If the legislation passes, chokeholds will be banned from use during MMA competitions but only in the state of Illinois, as reported by BJ Penn. As for anywhere else (with the exception of New York which doesn’t allow MMA in general), chokeholds are still legal, despite Jim Glasgow expressing his disbelief such moves are even allowed.

[Image via Buda Mendes/Getty]