LAS VEGAS – While the Nevada State Athletic Commission has yet to formally introduce any regulations aimed at curtailing pre-fight trash talk, chairman Anthony A. Marnell III still intends to bring them forward despite some very vocal resistance, including from UFC President Dana White.

“Our goal is to just maybe raise the professionalism a little bit, and I think that these things can get escalated to a place where they get uncomfortable for fans, that are bad for the sport,” Marnell told MMAjunkie. “I know that obviously Dana doesn’t agree with that, and Dana is certainly entitled to his own opinion. I’ve got a lot of respect for Dana, and those are things that we’ll work through as we get closer to addressing that issue.”

In January, Marnell first raised the issue of reining in “the language that is used and is continuing to escalate year in and year out” while considering the punishments for UFC lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov and former two-division champ Conor McGregor for their roles in an infamous post-UFC 229 brawl.

The surprising revelation drew instant criticism, and White even labeled the idea as “unconstitutional” as a violation of fighters’ freedom of speech.

“I think it’s crazy,” White told reporters at a press conference earlier this month. “I think it’s insane. I think it’s unconstitutional, first of all. I don’t think you can legally do that. These guys get into a cage and they punch each other in the face, they can knock each other unconscious, they can choke each other, but they can’t say mean things to each other? It’s pretty ridiculous.”

Marnell admits constitutional law is not his specialty but points out that holding a license to fight in the state of Nevada is a privilege and not a guaranteed right, therefore limiting certain types of speech would not be out of the question.

“I’m not a constitutional lawyer, but it is a privileged license, not a right,” Marnell explained. “It’s a privilege, and privileged licenses come with different rules, different conditions that fighters have to live by – or all athletes. I would just ask all those people (suggesting that any proposed regulation would violate First Amendment rights) if somebody used that language in an NFL post-conference, what they think the NFL would do? What do they think MLB would do? What would the NBA do? I know what they would do because they’ve done it. It doesn’t happen in those sports because – I mean, gosh, in baseball even criticizing an umpire for a poor night can get you a fine. So I don’t know if the freedom of speech argument works inside of a regulated sporting environment.”

Marnell also suggested that while the UFC boss may have spoken out publicly against any potential attempt to tone down pre-fight rhetoric, the UFC’s own UFC Fighter Conduct Policy, implemented in 2013, addresses the exact type of language hopes to suppress.

Discipline may be imposed for misconduct, which includes without limitation, the following examples:

Derogatory or offensive conduct, including without limitation insulting language, symbols, or actions about a person’s ethnic background, heritage, color, race, national origin, age, religion, disability, gender or sexual orientation.

“The UFC has a code of conduct policy, and I think there are very clear guidelines in that code of conduct policy that go right down the track of what I’m talking about, where it’s a private entity, as well, that has some regulations, some rules, and I think needs to take a little bit harder look at enforcing them,” Marnell said.

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