‘She Elbowed My Anus’

We’re already seeing some creative implementation of the 12-6 downward elbow, and none more so than during Robertson vs. Pinheiro at UFC Vegas 100.

Luana Pinheiro is not happy with her last opponent Gillian Robertson after the Canadian fighter hit her with a new kind of strike that left her in serious pain for weeks after their bout.

Pinheiro and Robertson met at UFC Vegas 100 on November 9th, and Robertson walked away with a unanimous decision win. Pinheiro limped out of the cage and still can’t sit down comfortably because “The Savage” hit her with a downward elbow directly to her anus.

12-6 elbows had been illegal since the dawn of MMA, a relic of a rule that exists because commission heads watched too many board breaking demonstrations at McDojos. But after years of talking about removing the rule, the restriction was finally lifted in time for the UFC’s return to Edmonton on November 2nd.

Cody Gibson was the first UFC fighter to use downward elbows legally, cutting open Chad Anheliger with them. A week later, Gillian Robertson would use them in Las Vegas, but not in the way you might expect. During a grappling exchange that saw her opponent Luana Pinheiro stacked head down against the cage, Robertson dropped several 12-6 right down her butt crack.

In an interview with Ag.Fight, Pinheiro discussed the ‘disrespectful’ move.

“I definitely felt it there. Excuse my language, but she elbowed my anus,” Pinheiro said. “To me, that’s disrespectful. I’d never do that to another athlete. She’s a woman fighting there, you know? I’m there because she’s there, we’re chasing the same dream. So it’s only fair to respect your opponent. I think that was really disrespectful on her part.”

“It’s not a move to submit or knock me out, it’s not like that. In my view she did it maliciously, with bad intentions. Not just during the round, but after the bell she did it again.”

Video footage of the incident does show that Robertson drops a 12-6 downward anus strike after the horn, but not so late that we’d consider it a dirty move. As for the morality of butt blaster attacks in general? You could argue that the anus should be considered a protected area just like the groin … but as of now, it’s not. Strikes to the spine are illegal, though, and Pinheiro implied the elbows damaged her tailbone.

“I’m on strong meds. Today’s the last day I’ll take them,” she said. “I can’t sit without a cushion or bend my back. I can’t exert much force because I feel it there. At first I couldn’t walk, cough, or laugh properly. Sneezing was agony, I felt like I was dying, you know?”

“It wasn’t heat of the moment. She knew where she was hitting, you know?”

There was some bad blood leading into this match after Robertson accused Pinheiro of ‘stealing’ her signature red fight kit, forcing her to wear black instead. Now Pinheiro is literally butthurt about the way their fight went.

Perhaps these two will face each other again in the cage to work things out. Too bad it may take a decade for any rule change regarding the dreaded downward anus elbow to make it on the books.