THE CANADIAN PRESS

TORONTO -- UFC president Dana White was happy to talk up mixed martial arts Tuesday while Premier Dalton McGuinty looked to avoid the conversation.

White rolled into town for a question-and-answer session with fans and to meet the media. By packing the foyer of the Eaton Centre mall with fights fans, he also created an instant show of support for his sport, which has yet to be officially sanctioned in the province.

Asked by a fan what can be done to advance the cause, White replied: "You just did it."

White was on his best behaviour, holstering his trademark F-bombs while insisting progress was being made on bringing the sport to Ontario.

"What you have to understand is this education process is going to take longer in some places than it does in others," he said. "It's happening. I'm going to keep coming up here until it gets done.

"This is the biggest (MMA) market in the world and there's no reason it shouldn't be here."

In a somewhat surprising turn, the potty-mouthed promoter came across as the patient one while the politician looked to end the dialogue, with McGuinty repeating his stance that the MMA issue is not a priority.

Earlier, McGuinty told reporters at the legislature that the MMA debate is a "distraction" and allowing the sport just isn't on his agenda right now.

There are more important issues the governing Liberals must focus on, such as harmonizing sales taxes and developing clean-water technology, McGuinty added.

"If I was to knock on 1,000 Ontario family doors and ask them for their top three concerns, I'd be surprised if anybody said, 'Well, my top three, one of those is we've got to start this new kind of mixed martial arts in Ontario -- that's going to mean a lot for me and my family and our future together,"' he said.

"So it's just not a priority for our families, so it's not a priority for me."

Said White: "This guy's running the government. Should MMA be on the top of his list? No, there's a lot of other things that are more important. But what he didn't say is it's not on my list. And at one time that was his position. He didn't want to hear about mixed martial arts.

"It's on his list now. It's not on the top of his list and it shouldn't be. We're probably in the worst economic situation in the history of the world, not just in the U.S. but everywhere. There's a lot more problems that this guy needs to deal with other than get MMA regulated."

Still, McGuinty's patience was limited on the issue.

Pressed again, the premier said: "In ultimate fighting, you can tap out," he said. "I'm tapping out on this."

White, however, was happy to take all questions or pose for pictures.

"I'll stay here all day and take a picture with everyone in this place," he said to cheers.

"Dude, you guys can ask me any question you want to," he added.

Ironically, the UFC is finding its most potent market its most difficult to breach. White remains optimistic, however.

"I honestly don't believe anyone is opposed to it here," he said. "It's just a matter of how do we get it done."

South of the border, the UFC is working on the final pieces in the sanctioning puzzle, having recently got sanctioning in Massachusetts, Wisconsin and Alabama. New York tops the U.S. to-do list, along with West Virginia, Connecticut and Vermont.

Those are the final U.S. jurisdictions without MMA regulations, other than Alaska and Wyoming which do not have athletic commissions.

The UFC has also held shows in Australia, England, Germany, Ireland and Northern Ireland and is headed to the United Arab Emirates next month.

With Montreal slated to hold a UFC event in May for a third straight year and Vancouver coming on board in June, Ontario is the major Canadian holdout left for the UFC.

"I consider Ontario our biggest market in the world," White told reporters, citing ticket and pay-per-view sales.

And he predicted an Ontario show would be "the craziest, blow-the-roof-off-the-place show ever."

"You guys travel everywhere," he said. "You guys travel all over the world, all over the United States for this thing and man, I'm telling you, I'm going to get it here so you guys can just walk down the street and go to the fight."

Opposition Leader Tim Hudak is on board.

"I just think this reflects a premier who is hanging around an elite crowd and is dramatically out-of-touch with what is the fastest growing spectator sport in North America," he said.

"You can't get into a sports pub when there's a UFC event on. If I were premier, this would've happened by now."

White said MMA deserves a fair shot.

"We have a 10-year track record of safety," he said. "It's very successful every time we come into a market. It definitely helps the economy and creates more jobs. And this is a real sport. It's like asking should the NFL be allowed to come up here, should Major League Baseball be allowed to come up here. Absolutely we should be.

"And the biggest thing is we're running towards regulation, we're not trying to go around it. We're not trying to go to some province here that will let us do it without overseeing us. ... There's no reason this shouldn't be regulated in Ontario."

White said critics of the sport had the same misconceptions of MMA's fans as its fighters.

"There's more fights at the Wiggles concert than there is at a UFC event," he said.

"You want to be terrified? Go to a New York Yankees-Boston Red Sox game. You get killed there."