I've long been a proponent of proper sanctioning of MMA events to prevent unscrupulous promoters from jeopardizing the safety of the athletes and/or taking advantage of fans. However, the state of Indiana is currently doing a fantastic job of showing us the dark side of sport sanctioning, and showing how good intentions can result in a situation at least as bad as any you'd find in an unsanctioned environment.

Indiana has been the home to a number of MMA organizations over the past decade and a half, most notably Jeff Osborne's groundbreaking "Hook n Shoot" group. Some of those shows (including Jeff's) have been properly run, but others have been atrocities, and as a result of the latter there's been a recent move toward sanctioning. That sounds like a good thing on the surface, but only until you realize that while the deadline for commission oversight has been set July 1st, amazingly no one has drafted a rules structure by which the sport is to be governed.

Now there is talk of hastily slapping together a set of "Emergency Rules" which would purportedly be in place until the "real" rules are ratified. Uh...right. How safe and responsible does this sound to you?

Indiana has a ridiculously oversaturated MMA scene (if no currently scheduled shows are cancelled, then by the end of June it will have already hosted a mind-boggling 121 shows), and any commission that wants to govern in such a crazy environment can ill afford the kind of laziness and lack of attention to detail that is being evidenced here.

Making things even worse is that a new state budget is currently under debate, and if it ends up that available funds prove inadequate, this whole shaky plan will come down like a house of cards (which it sounds like it's going to do anyway).

And as always, nobody has called Jeff Osborne and asked for help despite the fact that he's one of the world's top experts on MMA who has been running safe and well-received shows far longer than anyone else in the state.

Unbelievable.