FIGHTING out of the octagon’s red corner: the reigning light-heavyweight champion. In the blue corner: a cunning veteran with a penchant for wrestling. After a whirl of limbs, the challenger is pinned to the floor, elbowed and punched. With 27 seconds left in round one, the challenger by now bleeding profusely, the referee ends the fight. This much anticipated Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) bout was sold out in Newark, New Jersey, on April 27th. But across the Hudson River professional mixed martial arts (MMA) is illegal.

New York is one of only two states— neighbouring Connecticut is the other—which do not permit professional MMA fights. This is a puzzle in a place generally known for its freewheeling ways. In March, for the fourth consecutive year, the state senate passed a bill which would allow New York to permit, regulate and tax the sport, but the state assembly has the measure in a stronghold. Its speaker, who wields much power in the state capital, has blocked efforts to bring the bill to a vote.

New York state is already the franchise’s biggest market, in terms of pay-per-view TV subscribers. At the recent Newark bout, most of the spectators were New Yorkers. Joseph Griffo, a Republican state senator would give New Yorkers the opportunity to see the fighters live at Madison Square Garden. “The Garden is the mecca,” he says, “but there are opportunities upstate too.”

The sport has come some way from its early days, when eye-gouging was permitted. John McCain, a Republican senator, once called it “human cockfighting”. Indeed, the franchise’s former owners bragged that this kind of fighting had no rules. But since the current owners purchased UFC in 2001 for a mere $2m, they have cleaned up its image and made it safer. The matches can be bloody. But minor lacerations are more common than serious head injuries. A Johns Hopkins study showed that 3% of matches ended in a concussion, a similar rate to other combat sports.

With tighter rules came a move toward the mainstream. UFC is in the second year of a seven-year $700m deal with Fox Sports. It recently went head-to- head with the basketball play-offs and trounced the ball game in ratings. Millions of Americans will pay $55 to watch top fights on pay-per-view TV. About 40% of the sport’s audience is female. Lorenzo Fertitta, UFC’s chief executive and co-owner, boasts, slightly implausibly, that it is the world’s most valuable sporting franchise. His company has filed a federal lawsuit claiming that New York state’s ban tramples on first amendment rights—presumably on the grounds that an elbow to the face is an ancient form of free speech.