NO HOLDS BARRED

On this edition of No Holds Barred, host Eddie Goldman speaks with Jussi Saloranta, the founder of the mixed martial arts promotion, DARE Championship.

Based in Thailand, DARE began running MMA shows there in 2011. They soon garnered a lot of media attention, both internationally and in Thailand, and were regarded as one of the hottest new MMA companies in Asia.

In late March of this year, however, reports began coming from Thailand that the Sports Authority of Thailand, which regulates combat sports in that country, had decided to ban MMA. These reports were eventually confirmed as being true, both by the media and the MMA community.

The exact reasons for this ban are up for debate, but nonetheless it leaves DARE in a quandary. Their next show had been scheduled for June 24 in Bangkok, but now its fate is uncertain.

To find out what is going on with DARE, we spoke with Jussi Saloranta by Skype Saturday (Friday in New York).

"It's an interesting situation from many ways, but from our point of view, from the point of view from DARE, we're seeing it at the same time as a very positive one," he explained in this interview, "as we have been receiving more popularity and media attention, and got the mixed martial arts to people's lips that have never been actually involved with the sport before. So it's a situation with good and bad elements, but we still see the future of MMA very positive here in Thailand."

We thus discussed why that all is, what has happened, what their plans are for the future of DARE, who their biggest target market is, and much more.

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