According to Casey Oxendine, a professional fighter with a record of 2-0 in non-sanctioned fights, the Mississippi Athletic Commission has just taken a gigantic leap forward in the evolution of the sport and approved 2-on-2 fights.

In a post on the Underground Forum, he said:

IT’S OFFICIAL!!

The Mississippi Athletic Commission has made history as the first United States sanctioning body to approve Arena Combat 2-on-2 Team Martial Arts in their state. Our application for a promoters license was submitted and approved late last week in a monumental step for the growth of our sport in America. We will keep you updated in coming weeks with details of our first pro-am event, scheduled for early 2015.

In May, the promotion Hip Show Arena Combat International speculated that 2-on-2 fights would be approved sometime in the summer of 2014. Oxendine and Cyrus Fees, hosts of “MMA: Inside the Cage” are the relatively new owners of the previously Russian promotion.

In his interview with MMAFighting, Oxendine said, “Arena Combat is simply the most exciting combat sport on the planet, today. Twenty years ago, a new sport entered the mainstream as mixed martial arts. Now’s the time for Arena Combat to do the same.”

The show debuted on August 15th, 2014, in Bristol, Virginia. It seems unlikely that such a proposal would be approved, say, in the geographical vicinity of New York. Judge for yourself whether this development represents a step forward for the sport, or an evolutionary reversion towards the primordial ooze of pre-Unified Rules MMA.