If CAMMO requires 7 oz gloves why don’t they allow other brands of similar quality and size? Is their brand the only safe glove on the market and are there no other gloves that fit their required specification? The problem is when you can use your own glove you can manipulate your glove regardless of the quality. This is why all other boxing, kickboxing and MMA promotions are responsible for providing quality and pre inspected gloves to the fighters before their bout. This is the only way they can ensure gloves are not tampered with!

Rash Guards may protect against skin and blood born diseases but why in the world do you have to use only a CAMMO rash guard! Are you saying that other brands of rash guards are less safe than the CAMMO brand?

It appears that CAMMO is a governing organization, a league and a brand. This would be fine except the government allows no other alternatives and made CAMMO a monopoly. What if the government said only the Major League Baseball could organize little league baseball and all the players had to pay MLB a $115 license to play and purchase uniforms, gloves and bats only from MLB.

BUT, they do require legitimate blood work, which protects fighters from getting STD’s in a fight, so that part is good.

You’re right though, headgear would be safer.

@AZ

But let me help you with a few things:

Firstly, there is no organization known as “C.A.M.O.” as you put it over and over again in your
article. That’s an error.
It is in fact “C.A.M.MO.”
http://www.camomma.org/

The whole point of an acronym is that it mimics the actual word.

“Gloves will be 8 ounce gloves. Most standard glove manufacturers make either 4 or 7 ounce gloves.”

-Wrong. I don’t know where you’re getting your info (might even be the C.A.M.M.O website for all I know, it’s pretty slow to update and has some bugs) but C.A.M.M.O. gloves are DEFINITELY 7 ounces, not eight. That’s not even a point of debate. I ought to know, I work a lot of their shows, and help fighters put those gloves on regularly, so it’s funny that you claim C.A.M.M.O. gloves are 8 ounces here- they are definitely not, no way buddy, check your facts.

As to selling their gear at an expensive price, there are definitely two sides to it. Firstly, you can get a promoter to cover medical costs, even for Amateurs. I do it for my guys all the time.
C.S.A.C. IS already on C.A.M.M.O. for profiting from the gear, believe it.

But I tell you what buddy, there is no scam or conspiracy here. Guys show up to smokers with no shirt, torn gloves, and fake blood work. I’d rather know a few guys have lighter wallets, than here that some poor 18 year old kid got Hep C from another fighter- that’s what the rashguards and regulation gloves are for. You clearly have no idea how many poor kids have gotten STD’s from their fights. It happens regularly- fighters are shady as hell in California.

Know, maybe that brings us to what we’re actually disagreeing about- hey, maybe people are more honest in Ohio and you don’t need as much regulation out there. It’s a possibility I’m willing to concede, but from your comments in this otherwise well-thought article, I’m not sure that you know CA very well.

C.A.M.M.O. gloves are durable, and they’re hard to monkey around with.

If the stitching busts, it’s obvious- and I’ll notice it right away. Fighters
were always trying to fool with their gloves- inject hard materials into them, slip in some metal etc. At smokers, that’s always going down. Since C.A.M.M.O. set the standard, and has a little ransom money on each fighter- hey man, we see way less of that, and that’s a good thing.

Because now that there’s the standard, an Inspector can say “son, this knuckle are is hard as a rock.
I’m not saying you doctored these gloves, but I’m saying they’re too hard for me to allow you to fight with. You have 2 options: 1) don’t fight 2) buy a new set of gloves.”

You have no idea how much injury has been avoided with that standard.

If you let guys come in with any old glove from any old company, there will be injuries of fighters hands, due to inconsistent design, and guys being what’s cheap, not what will actually protect them.

The cost… $225 is not for one fight (some of the comments here are twisted on that), it’s for 6-months to a year, depending (there are some allowances there, which I’m not going to detail for you at this point). If you want to go to some clown show smoker events, no one is stopping ya.

C.A.M.M.O. events raise the bar on the health and safety of fighters. Their event have AT LEAST 1 doctor, and paramedics. Ever seen that at a smoker? And if so, how many times? I worked 21 bouts on Sunday, and there were two trips to the hospital. No offense friend, but a little money from each fighter got a licensed MD and paramedics on deck for those fighters, and it was worth it.

$225 per 6 month/1 year period doesn’t even factor in against how much neurological damage from an untreated injury could cost, and you know fighters, Sir, if you don’t make them take care of themselves, they won’t.

Amateur boxing has so many safety features that the sport is now unique from its professional form. It appears that CAMO is trying to cut corners and promote professional MMA style events at the expense of young fighters who would be better served fighting for a paycheck.

However at the cost to the fighter is ridiculous. CAMO is milking there newly minted power given to them by the California Athletic Commission to turn a profit. $225 is a lot of money for competition especially when you take on the gym and gear expenses. If you compare it to other sanctioning bodies of for example wrestling and USA wrestling they charge a annual $50 fee and usually 10 fee for tournaments for covering expenses. If I’m not mistaken they are non-profit and substantially cheaper than CAMO. They should be given specifications in the gear they use but allowed to choose from whom ever brand or manufacture they want to get the best price (but within specifications). Just as wrestling does with shoes and boxing does with gloves and baseball with bats and cleats………etc.

Everything about CAMO seems to be completly opposite of what it takes to be a non-profit in california. I see no information on orginizational meeting places & times. A list of Board of directors. & Times the meetins take place. All of this information has to be made public by california state law to be considered a non profit orginization.

I have allready started the paperwork with the state of california to review thier status & temporarally stop any functions from CAMO. If your trully here for the fighters. Show THEM!!!

When one is professional there are a lot of lil things that you have to take care of that are not looked at when fighting amateur. With official ameteur events you get legit refs (not the owner of a gym that may hold a biase), legit matches, and experience/insight into becoming professional. Yes, i agree it is pricey but at the same time there are other ways to get things done.

For a the physical and blood one can go to a clinic (for example planned parenthood for free blood test). And for the fighter fee, the fighter can start saving money, $115 is not too pricey if that’s what you want, if anything, they can start writing letters for sponsors, to get to learn the trade!!! It’s a learning experience, this CAMO amateur organization for the fighters, and why not use it as such!

If anything, shouldn’t we be thinking of the safety, health, and promotions of the fighters? With more supporters for the organiztion we can develop it to bigger than what it is now (as it’s growing in popularity at an exponentially increasing level).

My boyfriend does complain about the gloves, the rash guard, and the prices but at least you know that the person that’s going against you is going through the same exact issues and has the same exact equipment.

Just a little positive thought to ponder.

Unfortuntly this is only the beginning as the Commission may have granted CAMO athourity to regulate other forms of Martial Arts aside from MMA.

They recently took a small step into the direction when they attemted to give regulation of of Amateur Pankration to CAMO. At the Dec 21st CSAC meeting the executive Officer recommended that this delegation be put on hold until a formal legal opinion is drafted. Mr. Rodriguez rejected the recomendation and announced that CAMO will also regulate Amateur Pankration. I contacted DCA legal for clearity and still awaiting a response.

We have self governed Amateur Pankration for the past eight years without incident or any issues with the CSAC. In fact we disclosed our events and rules as far back as 2005. All of a sudden this year the CSAC have taken a position that the sport is in need of regulation.

They first rasied the issue that they were concerned about the health and welfare of the competitors. We think we were able to prove that our events were indeed safe with very few injuries and appropriate medical services on staff. They now say that Pankration uses Full Contact Martial Arts Techniques and they have the athourity to regulate it and give the regulation to CAMO. We hold the position that we do not allow Full Contact Martial Art Techniques because Strikes are limited to the body and must be delivered in a controlled manner. Matches cannot be won by injury and violators risk disqualification. We even changed our rules to fit the CSAC description of “light Contact” .

The real danger is, if they define Pankration as having Full Contact Martial Art Techniques, they can also include Jiujitsu , Karate , Taekwondo etc… They have not said what “Full Contact Martial Arts Techniques” are ?– Full Contact Chokes or Arm Bars , Karate Strikes to the body , Wrestling Cross Face or Double Leg Takedown , Taekwkondo kicks etc….

Hopfully this entire deal will get investigated. We always belived someting shaddy was going on especially since the Interm Executive Officer William Douglas would not responed to at least 6 or 7 questions we had starting back in March 09 when we learned someting was in the works. Thus we never had a chance to respond to the proposed regulation of the Sport we developed for the past 8 years.

http://www.fppc.ca.gov/agendas/12-09/RodriguezEx.pdf

Everyone forgot to mention that CAMO also gets 5% of ticket sales and $500 a year just to call yourself a promoter. The $1250 to $2500 plus all the other BS fees cannot be justified since they do nothing except keep a data base of fighters.

Judges, Inspectors and Referees just have to pay CAMO money for their jobs. Referees have to pay $500 to go though a CAMO appointed referee school. As high as these fees are, there is noting that will prevent them from hiking them further.

Jeremy Lappen and JT Steele care nothing about charity or Amateur MMA. They are only involved to make a buck. It amazing that they are still around after the Elite XC Kimbo Slice incident.

If the CSAC collected this much money from Amateur MMA they would be debt free. Maybe the people behind this will soon have jobs with CAMO.

You didn’t even touch on the ridiculous fees CAMO charges for promoters to put on shows. For shows with capacity of less than 500 seats – they want $1250 up front. This money does not go to any of the other needs a promoter must pay for. It doesn’t include insurance ( cost another $500), judges (3 x $100), doctor ($100-$300), refs( 2 x $100 ), ambulance ($300-$500). They even require you to pay for a CAMO official to present to oversee the event at the expense of an additional $150.

What is that $1250 going toward exactly?

The whole thing is a scam – and the contract CAMO was awarded by the state is looking more and more likely that it wasn’t legally awarded. CSAC has long been considered corrupt or at least extremely dysfunctional. I fully expect the CA combat sports community to reject this bullshit and unfortunately take the amateur program underground.