Vancouver city council has voted against sanctioning mixed martial arts fighting in the city, at least until it can get more information about the sport.

Ultimate Fighting champion Georges St. Pierre demontrates a sport that Vancouver city hall decided Thursday not to sanction.
(Ryan Remiorz/Canadian Press)

The city council also said it wants the British Columbia government to step in and create a provincial body to regulate combat sports such as mixed martial arts fighting, which is also known as ultimate fighting.

At a meeting Thursday, it became apparent that few members of the Vancouver council knew what mixed martial arts fighting is about, Stephen Quinn of CBC News reports.

They were given a quick primer from Paul Lazenby, a Vancouver-based mixed martial arts fighter and stunt actor.

"So there's no head-butting, there's no eye-gouging, there's no small-joint manipulation,'' he said. "Really what they're doing is they're honing each individual discipline and putting them all in one event.''

But the council decided not to sanction ultimate fighting in the city, at least until it can hear from police and fight organizers.

In the past, such events have been sanctioned by the city's athletic commission, which also controls and supervises professional boxing, kick-boxing and wrestling contests in Vancouver.

But the risks associated with ultimate fighting may be more than the athletic commission can take on, municipal staff said in a recent report to city council.

That's why city council had to consider whether to change its position on mixed martial arts in light of the liabilities involved, said Patricia Doge, the city's director of risk management.

"The Vancouver athletic commission was started to do only boxing and wrestling, and now they're looking at a different type of sport," Doge told CBC News in a recent interview.