Another UFC event, another night of blatant fouls, and another night without a single point deduction. What are rules for without meaningful enforcement?
Thirty years ago, Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) debuted on pay-per-view (PPV) with the controversial tagline, “There are no rules!”
Sure, there actually were some rules: no eye gouging, no fish hooking … dangerous stuff like that. From there, the rules would expand on an event-by-event basis, usually after Tank Abbott pulled some new stunt that broke the system. With Zuffa’s “run toward regulation” and the formation of the Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts in 2001, we could finally say mixed martial arts (MMA) had a proper rule book.
While regional commissions across the United States have started modifying individual rules to confusing effect, the general ruleset has stayed the same. And so has the hesitation by officials to actually enforce those rules, to the point now where we have to admit the whole system barely functions any more.
We don’t really have rules … not in any way that matters.
Instead, we have a list of suggestions, and referees are there to sternly remind fighters to please stay within those parameters for a fair fight. Not like any punishment will be dealt out to offenders.
UFC 294, which took place this afternoon in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, feels like a culmination of this mindset. There were endless fouls throughout the “Prelims” undercard (full results here). But again: can we really call them “fouls” when the referee refused to treat them as fouls? The number of cage grabs, glove grabs, low blows, punches to the back of heads, and knees to grounded opponents were high.
Absurdly high. In fact, we even had a blatant hair pull, that’s fresh and pretty rare.
Two fights were even waved off and declared “No Contest” because of … fouls! And not a single point was deducted all night.
Sure, the referee may stop the action for a moment when a fighter gets fouled. The victim sometimes gets a moment to recover. The perpetrator occasionally gets a stern warning. But, even if they “break” the “rules” again minutes later, they still get away with it more often than not.
The lawlessness at UFC 294 extended out past in-cage shenanigans. Victoria Dudakova and Mike Breeden both admitted to sneaking staph infections past commission doctors so they could still fight. We’d say that’s recklessly irresponsible, but it’s hard to come down too hard on them when UFC was hoping Paulo Costa could compete with a literal hole in his elbow from staph (see the NSFW pics here).
After learning about the staph situation, UFC CEO, Dana White, sounded more annoyed that the fighters had admitted to duping the system than the fact that they’d spread staphylococcus bacteria all over the cage.
“If you’re gonna lie and hide injuries like that, lie all the way home,” White said at UFC 294’s post-fight press conference (watch it here). “Why are you gonna lie and do that and then sit up here and say ‘Oh I had a staph infection.’ It’s just a very f—ing weird thing to do, to be honest with you. Very weird.”
That attitude coming from the top isn’t an aberration. Tim Elliott fought at UFC 294 against Muhammad Mokaev and hammered his grounded opponent with multiple knees to the head. It’s not his first blatant foul. After beating Tagir Ulanbekov in a foul-filled fight, Elliott was unrepentant.
“If you’ve ever been in a fight — and maybe I’m different — I’m trying to win, man,” he told MMA Fighting. “It’s the referee’s job to step in there if I’m doing something wrong … The bosses don’t care, Dana White doesn’t care, Mick Maynard, I’m good with all those guys. They had no problem cutting my checks, cheating or not cheating. I sleep fine at night and a lot more comfortably now that I have money in the bank.”
There’s a whole philosophical discussion you could have about whether a rule truly exists if there is no functional punishment mechanism attached. Fighters aren’t having that discussion, but they have taken notice and are starting to factor the reality of the situation into their fight strategies. So don’t expect things to get better any time soon.
As Tito Ortiz once said, “If you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying.”
For complete UFC 294 results, coverage and highlights click HERE.