Ontario – The Ontario Combative Sport Advisory Council will provide independent, expert advice to the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport, to inform the creation of updated regulations to provide Ontarians with clear guidelines for safely competing in combative sports.
The Combative Sports Act, 2019 (CSA) was passed by the Ontario legislature and received Royal Assent on May 29, 2019. It has not yet been fully proclaimed into force. Minister’s regulations related to technical sport rules must be created for the CSA to take full effect. The advisory council will inform the creation of these regulations.
The CSA will establish a new and modern framework for professional and amateur combative sports in Ontario once it is proclaimed in its entirety. This will enable more combative sports events to be held in the province, benefitting host communities and Ontario athletes alike.
The existing legislative frameworks for professional and amateur combative sports will remain in effect until the CSA is fully proclaimed into force. The advisory council members are appointed by the Lieutenant Governor based on recommendations made by the Minister of Tourism, Culture and Sport.
The Combative Sport Advisory Council:
Ned Kuruc (Council Chair)
Ned Kuruc has been involved with combative sports since the age of five. He began his combative sports career by earning a blue belt in Goju Ryu Karate. Ned then competed in Brazilian Ju Jitsu and Judo and served as the team assistant for Canada’s Muay Thai team at the World Muay Thai Amateur Championships. Ned and a group of partners opened Iron Tiger Muay Thai Gym in that same year, which has trained many international championship fighters. Ned opened his second gym – House of Champions MMA and Kickboxing Gym – in 2010. He served as a coach and cornerman for professional and amateur athletes. Ned also launched Champions Management, a combative sports agency and management firm, to represent the athletes that he was training. Ned was hired by K-1 Global in 2012 to be their Director of Events and Fighter Acquisitions. In this capacity, he opened and organized mega-events in jurisdictions around the world. As K-1 Global’s Technical Director and Match Maker, Ned ensured that all of K-1’s affiliated events complied with their fairness and safety standards.
Jennifer Huggins (Vice Chair)
Jennifer Huggins is the owner and operator of the Kingsway Boxing Club in Toronto. As an International Boxing referee and judge, Jennifer understands the sport of boxing inside and out. She has extensive experience working within boxing’s international, national and provincial sport organizations. During her time with Boxing Ontario, Jennifer served as an assistant coach with Ontario’s provincial team, Ontario’s Provincial Chief Official from 2018 to 2022, and president of Boxing Ontario’s Board of Directors. She is currently a Learning Facilitator with Boxing Canada and has also worked with the organization in other capacities. This includes sitting on Boxing Canada’s Inter-Provincial Territorial Committee, the Canadian R&J Commission, Gender Equity Advisory Group and the Gold Medal Profile Advisory Group. Jennifer is also the founder and executive director of the Fight to End Cancer, which has raised more than $3 million for cancer research, with proceeds going directly to support the research and patient care at The Princess Margaret Cancer Centre.
David Shaw
David Shaw is Executive Vice-President and Head of International and Content for the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), the world’s leading mixed martial arts (MMA) organization. David is responsible for the UFC’s international business, as well as content distribution and digital and social media operations. He manages the organization’s employees in Moscow, London, Sao Paulo, Shanghai, Sydney and Toronto. Shaw first joined UFC in 2010 to help launch UFC’s operations in Canada. He became the Vice President of Content in 2013, overseeing UFC Live Event broadcast distribution and digital media assets internationally. David has helped to expand the UFC to jurisdictions across the globe. UFC produces more than 40 live events annually in some of the most prestigious arenas around the world while broadcasting to over 900 million TV households across more than 170 countries. David hails from Toronto and holds a Bachelor of Commerce from Queen’s University. He is one of the foremost authorities on the business of growing combative sports markets.
Shari Carruthers
Shari Carruthers comes from a family of entrepreneurs and is a self-made businesswoman. Shari is a professional accountant by day, but her passion for combative sports motivated her to get involved beyond the standard avenues. Shari currently serves as the Chief Operations Officer for BTC Fight Promotions in Burlington. BTC is one of the province’s longest-running professional MMA fight-promotion companies and Shari is one of Ontario’s most active professional MMA promoters. One of Shari’s primary goals as COO has been to expand professional MMA to new communities across the province to enable Ontario-based athletes to compete in front of home crowds. Shari also operates the Burlington Training Centre – a 17,000-square-foot facility dedicated to mixed martial arts and hosting combative sporting events.
Muzammal Nawaz
Muzammal Nawaz found a lifelong passion in combative sports at the age of seven. This led him to earn black belts in various martial arts and become the Canadian Lightweight Karate Champion after a few years. Muzammal found his stride in boxing and kickboxing during his studies at McMaster University. He competed in 34 countries and won medals in eight different World Amateur Kickboxing Championships between 1989 and 1999. He shifted into professional kickboxing while completing his Masters at the University of Toronto. He retired from the ring after becoming a five-time World PRO Middleweight Champion. Muzammal later opened the Bay Area Athletic Club, where he trains coaches and high-performance athletes in boxing, kickboxing and MMA. He is also the founder of the World Association of Kickboxing Organizations (WAKO) Canada, the first kickboxing association to be recognized by the government of Canada. Muzammal’s efforts helped legalize kickboxing and created a structure for the development of the sport. WAKO Canada has supported more than 500 clubs to develop their programming, and Muzammal has personally trained and certified over 1000 coaches across Canada. He is an internationally sought-out leadership consultant to various national sport federations, clubs and professional teams.
Dr. Mark Boutros
Dr. Mark Boutros is a family physician as well as a sports medicine physician, specializing in combat sports as well as dive and hyperbaric medicine. As an amateur judo athlete himself, Dr. Boutros quickly focused on combative sports and became a Certified Combat Sports Physician in 2017 with the Association of Ringside Physicians and American College of Sports Medicine. He has participated in and covered multiple contests and events with Boxing Ontario and Muay Thai Ontario. In 2018, Dr. Boutros began his journey as a Professional Combat Sports Physician with the Ontario Athletics Commission, covering multitude of professional boxing and MMA events since that time, including UFC 231 and UFC Ottawa in 2019. Dr. Boutros currently serves as the medical director for the Adelaide Health Clinic in Toronto – a family clinic and sports medicine practice. In addition to his roles as a family physician and ringside physician, he was elected to the position of the Medical Advisor for the Ontario Athletics Commission in 2022 and continues to serve the Commission in this role to this day, while covering professional combat sports events regularly.
Alin Halmagean
Alin Halmagean has dedicated his life to combative sports as an athlete, coach, educator, gym owner, judge and official. He began learning the disciplines of martial arts at the age of 13 in Romania. Alin’s love of combative sports motivated him to also explore Thai boxing, Boxing, Mixed Martial Arts and Jeet Kune Do. Alin opened his first martial arts studio at the age of 19 and won the Romanian Kickboxing Championship under WAKO two years later. He emigrated to Canada in 2000 after earning his bachelor’s degree in Physical Education from the University of Vasile Goldis. Alin was a member of the coaching staff for Team Canada at the WMF World Muay Thai Championships in 2006. He has also served as President of the Canadian Amateur Muay Thai Association of Ontario, President of Muya Thai Ontario, Technical Director for K-1 Global’s and as a Coach and Cutman for the UFC in Canada, New Zealand, China and the United States — safeguarding the health and safety of mixed martial arts’ elite athletes as they compete. Alin was Licensed as Professional Cornerman on five continents.