UFC President Dana White won't submit to Ontario Premiere on MMA sanctioning

The name ... is Dalton.

UFC President Dana White joined Sam Stout and Krzysztof Soszynski yesterday (March 23) for an autograph signing at the Toronto Eaton Centre to help rally the troops for mixed martial arts sanctioning to one day happen in Ontario.

White expects MMA to eventually become the world's largest and most popular sport. Unfortunately that vision of global domination won't start in Ontario, Canada, as Premier Dalton McGuinty has indicated that MMA regulation was "not a priority."

Last year White was hoping to secure a show in Ontario at some point in 2010, setting his sights on Toronto's Rogers Centre in front of as many as 50,000 fans. Considering that one of the world's most popular fighters is a Canadian named Georges St. Pierre, that wasn't such an unrealistic goal.

Then again, nothing is possible unless the Ontario Athletic Commission lifts its ban on cagefighting, that while not a priority, could help generate millions of dollars for the local economy. Unfortunately McGuinty's vision of the future does not include the UFC.

More from the Premiere (via The Canadian Press):

"If I was to knock on 1,000 Ontario family doors and ask them for their top three concerns, I'd be surprised if anybody said, 'Well, my top three, one of those is we've got to start this new kind of mixed martial arts in Ontario - that's going to mean a lot for me and my family and our future together. So it's just not a priority for our families, so it's not a priority for me. In ultimate fighting, you can tap out. I'm tapping out on this."

While he doesn't share his personal opinion of mixed martial arts as a sport, it's no secret that a majority of legislative blowhards still envision the UFC of yesteryear, when grotesquely out of shape bar room brawlers would duke it out for the chance to be submitted by Royce Gracie.

No longer, reaffirmed White:

"We have a 10-year track record of safety. It's very successful every time we come into a market. It definitely helps the economy and creates more jobs. And this is a real sport. It's like asking should the NFL be allowed to come up here, should Major League Baseball be allowed to come up here. Absolutely we should be. And the biggest thing is we're running towards regulation, we're not trying to go around it. We're not trying to go to some province here that will let us do it without overseeing us ... There's no reason this shouldn't be regulated in Ontario. There's more fights at the Wiggles concert than there is at a UFC event. You want to be terrified? Go to a New York Yankees-Boston Red Sox game. You get killed there."

Ontario stands to make millions in profit and tax revenue should the UFC hold another Canadian mega-event in 2010, much like they will in Montreal in May and then again in Vancouver (hopefully) just a month later.

Like New York, Ontario may begin to feel the squeeze from its inhabitants if neighboring communities are raking in boku bucks while they cling to their holier-than-thou stance on MMA.

That may soon change for "The Empire State" and hopefully, Ontario.