A major vote regarding the unified rules of mixed martial arts will take place in Las Vegas, Nevada, the fight capital of the world, today (August 2, 2016). According to MMAFighting.com’s Marc Raimondi, it’s possible that we could see the ABC (Association of Boxing Commissions) approve the majority of these proposed changes, although the same […]
A major vote regarding the unified rules of mixed martial arts will take place in Las Vegas, Nevada, the fight capital of the world, today (August 2, 2016). According to MMAFighting.com’s Marc Raimondi, it’s possible that we could see the ABC (Association of Boxing Commissions) approve the majority of these proposed changes, although the same can’t be said for all of the commissions present at the voting. And even if the changes are passed, some states may elect to follow the lead of the ABC in their home state.
As for the potential changes, there appears to be three being discussed. First off, the definition of a ‘grounded fighter’ is in question. A ‘grounded fighter’ is referring to when a fighter places a fingertip on the canvas to avoid eating any knees or kicks to the head. In the past, a fighter could touch the mat with any part of his body other than his feet and be deemed grounded, but with the new rule, a fighter must touch the ground with both hands and either his palms or his fists to be deemed grounded.
The New Jersey Athletic Control Board appears to be the leading commission in disagreement, and executive Nick Lembo, said that New Jersey will not adopt the changes if passed. He also explained why he’s against the revision of a ‘grounded fighter’ citing the chance of increased head damage:
“I am not in favor of anything that increases head strikes, especially in light of the NFL concussion lawsuits and what we’re learning now about head injuries,” Lembo said.
Lembo instead would like to referees push fighters to shy away from using this tactic prior to a fight. The executive is also against removing the foul for heel kicks to the kidney, a strike not typically seen in MMA, although Lembo noted that kidney strikes are outlawed in boxing.
Finally, the MMA Rules & Regulations committee would like to implement the word ‘damage’ into the official judging criteria. Damage has been a debatable topic for quite some time now regarding judging in combat sports, but Lembo doesn’t appear to be too fond of his proposal either:
“[NJSACB commissioner] Larry Hazzard has said, ‘If I have to tell my judges that they need to take damage into account for scoring, then I have the wrong judges,’” Lembo said.
How do you feel about these potential rule changes?
It’s one of the strangest, most arbitrary double-standards of MMA’s Unified Rules — you get five minutes to recover from a strike to the groin, but if you can’t immediately continue after an eye-poke, the fight is over. Considering that the eyes are the balls of the face, it’s a shame that both sets of organs aren’t given equal protection under the law.
Gian Villante was the latest victim of the eye-poke technicality at UFC 159, when he lost a technical decision to Ovince St. Preux after getting gouged 33 seconds into the second round of their prelim scrap. As he explained afterwards, “I couldn’t see for a second. I just blinked my eye to try to get some fluid back in there. I would have been fine 30 seconds later. I thought I had five minutes. All I needed was 10 seconds. But they ended it…I don’t know what was I supposed to say. And if I did know what to say, I’m in the middle of a fight. I’m not going to think, ‘What is the exact rule on what to say when you get poked in the eye?’ I’m going to say exactly how I feel. I can’t see for this second, but give me a second, and I’ll be all right.”
Instead, referee Kevin Mulhall stopped the fight, and the judges scored the action up to that point, giving Villante a loss in his UFC debut. On the bright side, that disappointing moment might have been the last straw in the UFC’s tolerance for some of the sport’s most controversial rules. According to an MMAJunkie report, UFC Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Marc Ratner will make a formal request to change MMA’s eye-poke protocol at the Association of Boxing Commissions’ annual conference in late July. (The ABC is responsible for maintaining the Unified Rules of MMA, and providing uniform standards for MMA among the state and tribal athletic commissions.)
It’s one of the strangest, most arbitrary double-standards of MMA’s Unified Rules — you get five minutes to recover from a strike to the groin, but if you can’t immediately continue after an eye-poke, the fight is over. Considering that the eyes are the balls of the face, it’s a shame that both sets of organs aren’t given equal protection under the law.
Gian Villante was the latest victim of the eye-poke technicality at UFC 159, when he lost a technical decision to Ovince St. Preux after getting gouged 33 seconds into the second round of their prelim scrap. As he explained afterwards, “I couldn’t see for a second. I just blinked my eye to try to get some fluid back in there. I would have been fine 30 seconds later. I thought I had five minutes. All I needed was 10 seconds. But they ended it…I don’t know what was I supposed to say. And if I did know what to say, I’m in the middle of a fight. I’m not going to think, ‘What is the exact rule on what to say when you get poked in the eye?’ I’m going to say exactly how I feel. I can’t see for this second, but give me a second, and I’ll be all right.”
Instead, referee Kevin Mulhall stopped the fight, and the judges scored the action up to that point, giving Villante a loss in his UFC debut. On the bright side, that disappointing moment might have been the last straw in the UFC’s tolerance for some of the sport’s most controversial rules. According to an MMAJunkie report, UFC Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Marc Ratner will make a formal request to change MMA’s eye-poke protocol at the Association of Boxing Commissions’ annual conference in late July. (The ABC is responsible for maintaining the Unified Rules of MMA, and providing uniform standards for MMA among the state and tribal athletic commissions.)
As Ratner puts it: “What we want the referees to do is don’t make a medical decision. Call time. Don’t ask the kid if he can see or not. Bring the doctor in and let the doctor make the determination…Now obviously, if any fighter can’t see, you want the fight stopped. But here’s a case where if you go through the mechanic and bring the doctor in, it will give them a chance to see if in fact the eye clears up and he can fight…I think by bringing the doctor in, just the whole operation will take a couple of minutes, and I think that should alleviate most of the pain and give us enough time to make sure the guy can fight.”
Alright, so it’s not as simple as “five minutes for eye-pokes too,” but the reasoning makes sense; give a fighter a chance to blink a few times before asking him if he can see, and let a doctor make the final decision about whether a match can continue.
Ratner also plans to propose a change to the definition of a “grounded opponent.” In the current incarnation of the Unified Rules, having a hand down on the mat gives a fighter “grounded” status, meaning that their opponent isn’t allowed to kick or knee them in the head. But fighters like Quinton Jackson and Paul Buentello have blatantly exploited this rule in the past, intentionally putting their hands on the mat to avoid trouble — and Ratner isn’t a fan of that either:
“We really believe this ‘three-point stance rule,’ where a fighter is just placing his hand on and off the mat so he won’t get hit, needs to be addressed. That’s not what the rule is for. That has to be looked at…If you’re going against the intent of the rule, and that’s what’s being done with some fighters, then we’ve got to change it.”
We wish Mr. Ratner luck in his quest to add a little bit of common sense to the Unified Rules. And once he has success with fixing the eye-poke and grounded-fighter rules, we hope he can help revise MMA’s other bad rules, like lifting the ban on 12-to-6 elbows, and prohibiting non-English-speaking fighters from taking us through the replay.
Are there any other MMA rules that you’d like to see changed?
“THE ABC IS CHANGING….oh…the MMA judging…No, no, that’s cool too…”
As some of you may know, I am working towards my master’s degree when I’m not writing for Cage Potato and currently preparing to defend my thesis. Because of this, I have been dragged into more semantics arguments than a person should ever admit to. I’ve had to defend every little “a” that could have been a “the” with Griffinesque tenacity – and I haven’t even defended the damn thing yet. Anyone who has ever attended graduate school can sympathize.
So when The Association Of Boxing Commissions (ABC) announced their newest revisions to the MMA Judging criteria at their annual conference, I read the document with skepticism. The fact that one of the new revisions removed the word “damage” from the scoring criteria partially so that opponents of MMA sanctioning can no longer point to the rulebook and say “LOOK, DAMAGING YOUR OPPONENT IS A RULE!” didn’t exactly help matters. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that some of the rule changes are actually pretty damn important.
“THE ABC IS CHANGING….oh…the MMA judging…No, no, that’s cool too…”
As some of you may know, I am working towards my master’s degree when I’m not writing for Cage Potato and currently preparing to defend my thesis. Because of this, I have been dragged into more semantics arguments than a person should ever admit to. I’ve had to defend every little “a” that could have been a “the” with Griffinesque tenacity – and I haven’t even defended the damn thing yet. Anyone who has ever attended graduate school can sympathize.
So when The Association Of Boxing Commissions (ABC) announced their newest revisions to the MMA Judging criteria at their annual conference, I read the document with skepticism. The fact that one of the new revisions removed the word “damage” from the scoring criteria partially so that opponents of MMA sanctioning can no longer point to the rulebook and say “LOOK, DAMAGING YOUR OPPONENT IS A RULE!” didn’t exactly help matters. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that some of the rule changes are actually pretty damn important.
For starters, those of you who complain about guys backpedaling their ways to victory (I’m looking directly at you, Nick Diaz fans) will be happy to know that ”effective defense” has been removed as a criterion for scoring a round. While Kalib Starnes would be pretty bummed about this one if he was still competing, I say good riddance. Honestly, I doubt many of you reading this even knew what “effective defense” meant in the first place. Frankly, I doubt anyone – judges included – agreed on whether it was more important than “aggression” when deciding which fighter won the round, or whether “effective defense” was part of “cage control” or not. It was far too open for debate to begin with, so taking it out of the rules should help judges make more consistent decisions.
Most importantly, striking and grappling are now given equal weight. I think we can all agree that it’s about time for this one. In theory, this means no more decisions like Johnson vs. Torres where the guy on top wins the round, regardless of how many submission attempts he’s trying to defend against. In theory, this puts effective striking and effective grappling on the same level. In theory, this may be the most significant rule change since the implementation of weight classes.
There’s just one problem that I see:
Too obvious?
This criteria is still in the hands of judges who, let’s face it, don’t always know what they’re even looking for in the first place. Take Cecil Peoples’ infamous “Leg kicks don’t finish fights” monstrosity: How do any of these rule changes change the fact that a person who is allowed to judge our sport doesn’t consider a leg kick to be an effective strike? They don’t. While the rule changes are a welcomed improvement when in the hands of judges who know what they’re looking for, they’re still pretty meaningless in the hands of judges who simply aren’t qualified.
In fairness though, the new revisions also clarify what constitutes effective striking, grappling, aggression and cage control. Likewise, the new revisions also tell judges how to score rounds as well (i.e. what warrants a 10-10 round; etc.), so perhaps we’ll start to see some more consistency in that department as well.
Time will tell how these rule changes actually affect the outcomes of fights, but there’s reason to be both optimistic and cynical as an MMA fan. The question now is, what side are you on?
