Calls for MMA ban in Germany

German newspaper Bild reported on Monday that the upcoming Ultimate Fighting Championship event in Germany has “sparked outrage.”

Bild ran a story with the headline, “Calls to ban the ‘insanity’ of brutal cage fighting in Germany”, on Monday.

The UFC will hold their UFC 99 event in Vologne, Germany’s Lanxess Arena on June 13. More than 6,000 tickets to the event, where the main event is Rich Franklin vs. Wanderlei Silva, has been sold so far.

“To make money out of youngsters for the glorification of violence is sick,” Armin Laschet, the youth minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, told the ‘Frankfurter Allgemeinen Sonntagszeitung’ (FAS).

Boxing expert Werner Schneyder added: “We must ban this insanity. People could die. Brutality is depicted as something impressive.”

“We try to control social violence and then the UFC comes along and puts it on stage in a huge arena,” said council member Martin Müser.

Tags: Rich Franklin, UFC, Wanderlei Silva