{"id":63946,"date":"2025-08-12T12:24:03","date_gmt":"2025-08-12T12:24:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/63946\/"},"modified":"2025-08-12T12:24:03","modified_gmt":"2025-08-12T12:24:03","slug":"two-people-taken-to-hospital-after-bare-knuckle-boxing-event-at-murrayfield-ice-arena","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/63946\/","title":{"rendered":"Two people taken to hospital after bare-knuckle boxing event at Murrayfield Ice Arena"},"content":{"rendered":"

A bare-knuckle boxing event at the Murrayfield Ice Arena, which left two fighters in hospital, has led to the venue\u2019s licence being altered.<\/p>\n

The Carnage in the Capital event in July saw 30 fighters face off in one-on-one matchups in the sport\u2019s first professional event in Scotland.<\/p>\n

The arena\u2019s bosses thought it fell within the terms of its indoor sports entertainment licence, which allows \u201cice hockey, ice skating, roller skating, boxing, and similar\u201d activities.<\/p>\n

But Edinburgh council officers disagreed, saying that what they termed both as \u2018bare-knuckle fighting\u2019 and \u2018bare-knuckle boxing\u2019 was not similar to the sports listed in the licence.<\/p>\n

They took the rare step of writing a letter to the city\u2019s Licensing Sub-Committee, asking for the term \u201cand similar\u201d to be removed from the licence.<\/p>\n

In a narrow 4-3 vote, councillors sided with officers, with the two Labour and two Conservative councillors voting to modify the licence.<\/p>\n

At the event, at least two boxers were sent to hospital \u2013 one with a broken jaw \u2013 and fighters had a range of injuries, including an arm fracture and a torn ACL.<\/p>\n

During Monday\u2019s meeting of the committee, licensing manager Catherine Scanlin said: \u201cConcerns were raised ahead of this event, and this was raised with the organiser.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe event did go ahead on the fifth of July, however, it\u2019s the directorate\u2019s view that we want to avoid any ambiguity under what activities should be included in the licence.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe inclusion of the words, \u2018and similar\u2019, which was used by the applicant to justify the operation of this event, we would ask that the \u2018and similar\u2019 be removed from the [licence].\u201d<\/p>\n

And Tom Veitch, Trading Standards manager, said: \u201cIt was advertised as featuring \u2018blood spattering, bone shattering, blood spills, and carnage\u2019 in relation to this event.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe concerns were such that both the council and the police considered the use of an immediate suspension.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn this occasion, concerns were resolved, less than 24 hours before the event. There was, however, significant council officers and police officers required for it to go ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n

A police sergeant in the meeting said that Police Scotland had no contributions to make to the committee about the event.<\/p>\n

Bare-knuckle boxing is legal in the UK, but has no official regulator. The event in July took place under the regulation of the International Sport Karate Association.<\/p>\n

Caroline Loudon, a solicitor representing the ice arena, said: \u201cWe\u2019re slightly surprised to get the notification to come to committee today.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s our position that there is no ambiguity here, and that it\u2019s not necessary to vary the terms of the licence at all.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t feel that the application by the Directorate is necessary or proportionate in the circumstances of this case.\u201d<\/p>\n

Scott Neil, who is involved in the management of the arena, said that ice hockey alone could not sustain the site by itself year-round, causing it to look for events in the summer months.<\/p>\n

He said that he felt that the event was safe, and said the sport\u2019s supporters would say it is safer than gloved boxing for a range of reasons, including the limits on the length of fights.<\/p>\n

Conservative councillor Cuthbert Neil said: \u201cI think I\u2019m happy to go with the recommendation of the report.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut just reflecting, and we\u2019ve had quite a lengthy discussion about this, I think it has flagged up an issue that others have noticed as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is an ambiguity. So it does seem to me that that has to be resolved.<\/p>\n

Liberal Democrat councillor Pauline Flannery advanced an alternative position, saying: \u201cI think boxing is similar.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think there is a difference, but it\u2019s what we want to do for the future that I\u2019m hearing underneath. And I think that is a separate conversation.\u201d<\/p>\n

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\"WhatsApp<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A bare-knuckle boxing event at the Murrayfield Ice Arena, which left two fighters in hospital, has led to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63947,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[447],"tags":[703,49,48,82],"class_list":["post-63946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-boxing","tag-boxing","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=63946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=63946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=63946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=63946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}