Lessons From the Violence at CageWarriors
Lessons
Pedro Wrobel May 26, 2005
LONDON — There's been a lot said about the events that took place
at the end of the CageWarriors: Strike Force show on May 21. I've
received a lot of E-mails and, having broken the story, I've seen a
lot of misunderstandings, a lot of anger and a lot of
confusion.
I'm not here to play the blame game. It is not my intention to take issue with the spectrum of reactions that the event has occasioned. In my view the most important thing that supporters of the MMA scene in the UK can to do is to reflect.
We need to investigate and understand what went wrong. We then need
to take the next step, which is to take those lessons forward and
ensure that, in future, those mistakes will never happen again.
It's best to start with some facts. Although the number of individuals involved in the violence, which according to promoters lasted just under four minutes, has not been confirmed, some eyewitness accounts have put the number as high as 100. As an eyewitness myself, I would put the number closer to 50 than 100, but it is always difficult to judge exactly how many people are involved in a melee of this nature.
"We can confirm that officers were called out to a disturbance at approximately 11:45 p.m.,” a spokesperson for the West Midlands police told Sherdog.com. “The officers attended immediately and cleared the arena, bringing the situation rapidly under control. Two people were arrested and cautioned for violence in a public place."
The police are continuing to investigate the incident and CageWarriors has passed footage of the event to the police, who will be looking to make further identifications on that basis.
Although nobody is denying that people were hurt, there were no reports of anybody hospitalized as a result of the riot. John Neville, manager of the Skydome Arena, described the violence as "an isolated and very regrettable incident from the venue's point of view" and noted "lessons had been learnt."
This was probably an isolated incident. CageWarriors has held 11 shows in the past, all of which were enjoyable and none of which saw any crowd violence. However, there were a number of facets of Saturday's show that potentially allowed the situation to flare up.
The first and most important question mark hangs over the security. The fact that so many people managed to come down from the tiered seating at the edges of the arena and into the VIP ringside area, which is where the epicenter of the disturbance occurred, is clearly suggestive of a security failure.
Any experienced security force would have realized the potential problem that this could cause, and would have nipped it in the bud by trying to keep fans in their seats.
Under normal circumstances, one would expect the responsibility for ensuring that adequate security is provided to be the job of the promoter. However, on this occasion, CageWarriors was refused the opportunity to provide its own security force, and instead was forced to rely on a security team provided by the venue, which was to prove woefully under-prepared.
The fact that CageWarriors argued for its own security force suggests that it was, at some level, worried about the security provision at the venue. However, the implementation of the Private Security Industry Act 2001 in the UK has led to the creation of the Security Industry Authority (SIA), whose specific intent is to regulate the private security industry. This the SIA does through the issuing of special licenses.
The aim of these licenses, according to the SIA, is as follows:
The public will be able to rely on the fact that anyone legitimately possessing an SIA license has demonstrated a given level of probity and professionalism, and that any company legitimately showing SIA approval is able to deliver a certain quality of service. The public will, therefore, for the first time have a national benchmark of probity and professionalism in the private security industry.
The point of this digression is that, according to CageWarriors promoter Dougie Truman, the security team at the Skydome arena was in possession of an SIA license. As a result, it could be considered perfectly legitimate for CageWarriors to rely on the Skydome security team, in which case questions may have to be asked as to the practical value of the SIA's accreditation.
I'm not here to play the blame game. It is not my intention to take issue with the spectrum of reactions that the event has occasioned. In my view the most important thing that supporters of the MMA scene in the UK can to do is to reflect.
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It's best to start with some facts. Although the number of individuals involved in the violence, which according to promoters lasted just under four minutes, has not been confirmed, some eyewitness accounts have put the number as high as 100. As an eyewitness myself, I would put the number closer to 50 than 100, but it is always difficult to judge exactly how many people are involved in a melee of this nature.
In terms of police presence, the promoters have informed me that
seven police officers in riot gear were sent into the arena,
although further officers were stationed outside.
"We can confirm that officers were called out to a disturbance at approximately 11:45 p.m.,” a spokesperson for the West Midlands police told Sherdog.com. “The officers attended immediately and cleared the arena, bringing the situation rapidly under control. Two people were arrested and cautioned for violence in a public place."
The police are continuing to investigate the incident and CageWarriors has passed footage of the event to the police, who will be looking to make further identifications on that basis.
Although nobody is denying that people were hurt, there were no reports of anybody hospitalized as a result of the riot. John Neville, manager of the Skydome Arena, described the violence as "an isolated and very regrettable incident from the venue's point of view" and noted "lessons had been learnt."
This was probably an isolated incident. CageWarriors has held 11 shows in the past, all of which were enjoyable and none of which saw any crowd violence. However, there were a number of facets of Saturday's show that potentially allowed the situation to flare up.
The first and most important question mark hangs over the security. The fact that so many people managed to come down from the tiered seating at the edges of the arena and into the VIP ringside area, which is where the epicenter of the disturbance occurred, is clearly suggestive of a security failure.
Any experienced security force would have realized the potential problem that this could cause, and would have nipped it in the bud by trying to keep fans in their seats.
Under normal circumstances, one would expect the responsibility for ensuring that adequate security is provided to be the job of the promoter. However, on this occasion, CageWarriors was refused the opportunity to provide its own security force, and instead was forced to rely on a security team provided by the venue, which was to prove woefully under-prepared.
The fact that CageWarriors argued for its own security force suggests that it was, at some level, worried about the security provision at the venue. However, the implementation of the Private Security Industry Act 2001 in the UK has led to the creation of the Security Industry Authority (SIA), whose specific intent is to regulate the private security industry. This the SIA does through the issuing of special licenses.
The aim of these licenses, according to the SIA, is as follows:
The public will be able to rely on the fact that anyone legitimately possessing an SIA license has demonstrated a given level of probity and professionalism, and that any company legitimately showing SIA approval is able to deliver a certain quality of service. The public will, therefore, for the first time have a national benchmark of probity and professionalism in the private security industry.
The point of this digression is that, according to CageWarriors promoter Dougie Truman, the security team at the Skydome arena was in possession of an SIA license. As a result, it could be considered perfectly legitimate for CageWarriors to rely on the Skydome security team, in which case questions may have to be asked as to the practical value of the SIA's accreditation.
