Mat Santos, in red shorts, demonstrates mixed martial arts, on Keith Doherty, of Swansea, at his gym in Cranston. Competitions in the sport, also called ultimate fighting, aren’t legal in Rhode Island, but lawmakers want to change that.

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The Providence Journal / Ruben W. Perez

CRANSTON — When Mat Santos first introduced ultimate fighting classes at his gym six years ago, only a handful of students enrolled.

Today the faithful flock to his ring to sweat, kick and sometimes bleed their way toward the dream of being the next great fighting champion.

Part wrestling, part street fighting, mixed martial arts, or ultimate fighting as it is popularly known, is slowly eclipsing boxing as the country’s most popular full-contact sport. Santos, 33, says the turnout he sees proves that the matchups once viewed as barbaric have gone mainstream here in the Ocean State.

There’s just one problem, ultimate fighting competitions aren’t legal in Rhode Island.

It’s not that the sport is illegal per se, but there is no state oversight commission that’s needed to sanction big name and big money fights.

A bill moving swiftly through the General Assembly seeks to change that. If approved, the legislation would create a commission to license the sport and oversee professional matches through the Department of Business Regulation’s division of racing and athletics, which supervises boxing and wrestling.

Popularized in the 1990s as a sort of street fighting with rules, mixed martial arts actually had very few of them back then. Arizona Sen. John McCain once famously condemned it as “human cockfighting.”

But fans say the sport has undergone a much needed makeover in the past decade, with regulations and commissions and a lengthy list of prohibited behaviors that make it significantly safer.

“This is a thinking sport now. It’s like human chess with tactics and strategies. You can’t be a dumb brute and do this,” says Adrian Fulk, a 25-year-old new dad who teaches with Santos and competes professionally.

Nationwide and in New England ultimate fighting routinely sells out arenas such as Mohegan Sun and draws record pay-per-view television audiences. Both NBC and CBS are reportedly close to signing deals to bring the sport to network TV.

“It’s not just one of those cult sports anymore. You know it’s really mainstream when major networks start getting involved,” said Tom Hafers, CEO of the United States Mixed Martial Arts program, in Bellingham, Mass.

The promise of cash is primarily what’s driving the proposal to legalize the sport here in Rhode Island.

If other Northeast states are an example, ticket sales are likely to be huge, said Lawrence J. Lepore, executive director of the Dunkin’ Donuts Center.

And, as with boxing and wrestling matches, 5 percent of gross ticket sales from mixed martial arts competitions in Rhode Island would go to the state, as an athletic commission tax.

On top of tickets, Lepore said, the average person attending ultimate fighting competitions spends about $14 on food, drink and merchandise. That’s compared with the estimated $6 that Dunkin’ Donuts Center patrons spend on family shows, he said.

But critics around the country decry the sport as excessively violent. They point to the recent death of a 30-something Texas man, Sammy Vasquez, who was badly hurt during an October 2007 competition in Austin, Texas. Vasquez underwent multiple surgeries to remove blood clots from his brain before dying a month later.

And while it’s legal in Massachusetts, the sport has been banned in the city of Boston for close to three years, based on concerns about safety and the potential for unruly crowds.

Department of Business Regulation Director A. Michael Marques said he views ultimate fighting as “a very brutal style of competition.”

When legalization proposals were introduced in the House and the Senate earlier this session, the department opposed the idea on the grounds that it has neither the expertise nor the staff necessary to oversee competitions (like boxing, ultimate fighting rules require that state inspectors, along with doctors, be on hand for every match).

The DBR has since adopted a neutral stance, reasoning it is not in the business of judging a sport’s value, but Marques said his personal concerns remain.

“If this legislation passes, I will do what I’m told, but I’m telling them, give me the people and the opportunity to have them trained,” Marques said. “We need to have more staff and we need to do it right or we’re just not going to do it at all.”

The faithful, such as Fulk and Santos –– whose father once served as the deputy director of the state’s Department of Administration –– blame the negative depictions of the sport on lack of knowledge. They say host venues, not the state, routinely pick up the cost for competition inspectors, and they’re quick to point out that Vasquez’s death was the first ever in North America.

Indeed, a 2006 study by doctors at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine showed that injury rates are no higher in ultimate fighting than in similar “combat sports” such as boxing.

Sen. Paul E. Moura, D-East Providence, who sponsored the Senate bill, said the promise of revenue is hard to ignore. “We invested a lot into the Dunkin’ Donuts Center and we need to maximize our revenue-generating potential,” he said.

House sponsor Rep. John J. McCauley Jr., D-Providence, shares that optimism, saying the sport’s high profile in recent years has convinced him it’s safe enough.

This week, McCauley’s bill is headed to the House floor, where lawmakers are expected to approve it. The Senate bill has yet to win committee passage, though Moura attributes the holdup to minor language changes and says he expects it to move on the Senate side.

“Anyone who doesn’t think there are already fans in Rhode Island is just wrong,” Hafers, of the Massachusetts club, said. Those who aren’t training at gyms like Santos’ are watching the fights on television. Or worse, they’re driving out of state to watch them live.

cneedham@projo.com