This year, hope arose that mixed martial arts would finally be legalized in New York state.
The sport's leading political enemy in the state, former state Assembly speaker Sheldon Silver, went down in disgrace, as he was indicted on fraud charges. This led many to believe that the ban on the sport, passed in a wave of anti-MMA hysteria in the late 1990s, would finally come off the books.
But those hopes were dashed this week, as this year's legislative session ended without the Assembly taking action on a bill to legalize the sport, the eighth straight year this has occurred.