(Looks like somebody’s already celebrating. / Video via NickDiaz209, obviously.)
Last spring former Nevada State Athletic Commission Executive Director and current UFC Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Marc Ratner publicly criticized the way that states like Nevada tested for Marijuana metabolites, and expressed hope that it would be changed.
Fighters competing while high should not be tolerated, the idea seemed to be, but punishing guys like Pat Healy for smoking weeks before fighting seemed harsh and silly. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) recently upped the metabolite level that they tested for, and the tide appears to have fully turned now as the NSAC has “officially raised the testing threshold of marijuana metabolites from 50 ng/mL to 150 ng/mL,” according to a report on MiddleEasy.
We’re no marijuana experts but this change would seem to be a move by the world’s most influential athletic commission to stop penalizing recreational marijuana use by fighters, although testing for THC will continue because, while perhaps not performance enhancing, it is dangerous to fight high, drunk or in any other significantly altered state.
(Looks like somebody’s already celebrating. / Video via NickDiaz209, obviously.)
Last spring former Nevada State Athletic Commission Executive Director and current UFC Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Marc Ratner publicly criticized the way that states like Nevada tested for Marijuana metabolites, and expressed hope that it would be changed.
Fighters competing while high should not be tolerated, the idea seemed to be, but punishing guys like Pat Healy for smoking weeks before fighting seemed harsh and silly. The World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) recently upped the metabolite level that they tested for, and the tide appears to have fully turned now as the NSAC has “officially raised the testing threshold of marijuana metabolites from 50 ng/mL to 150 ng/mL,” according to a report on MiddleEasy.
We’re no marijuana experts but this change would seem to be a move by the world’s most influential athletic commission to stop penalizing recreational marijuana use by fighters, although testing for THC will continue because, while perhaps not performance enhancing, it is dangerous to fight high, drunk or in any other significantly altered state.
You might not have heard about this, but the Nevada State Athletic Commission’s Steroid and Drug Testing Advisory Panel was held in Las Vegas over the weekend, and among the primary issues discussed was that of the acceptable threshold for marijuana metabolites in a given fighter’s system that the UFC currently allows, specifically on an international level. You see, since the UFC usually acts as its own regulatory body in foreign countries, an issue has recently emerged regarding the discrepancy between their acceptable level for metabolites — 50 ng/mL — and the newly-deemed acceptable level of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) — 150 ng/mL.
Fortunately, UFC Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Marc Ratner revealed during the panel that the promotion’s threshold will now be raised to meet the level of WADA’s. He spoke with MMAJunkie, then presumably passed one to the left hand side:
“When we self-regulate around the world, we are going to go the WADA standard of 150. So we’re starting that immediately.”
Ratner also told MMAjunkie.com the Brazilian MMA Athletic Commission – or Comissao Atletica Brasileira de MMA (CABMMA) – which regulates UFC events in Brazil, has also agreed to the same standard and will make the change at next week’s UFC on FUEL TV 10 event in Fortaleza. Brazilian commission officials later confirmed their decision.
You may be asking yourself, “What exactly does this threshold change mean for UFC fighters moving forward?”
You might not have heard about this, but the Nevada State Athletic Commission’s Steroid and Drug Testing Advisory Panel was held in Las Vegas over the weekend, and among the primary issues discussed was that of the acceptable threshold for marijuana metabolites in a given fighter’s system that the UFC currently allows, specifically on an international level. You see, since the UFC usually acts as its own regulatory body in foreign countries, an issue has recently emerged regarding the discrepancy between their acceptable level for metabolites – 50 ng/mL — and the newly-deemed acceptable level of the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) — 150 ng/mL.
Fortunately, UFC Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Marc Ratner revealed during the panel that the promotion’s threshold will now be raised to meet the level of WADA’s. He spoke with MMAJunkie, then presumably passed one to the left hand side:
“When we self-regulate around the world, we are going to go the WADA standard of 150. So we’re starting that immediately.”
Ratner also told MMAjunkie.com the Brazilian MMA Athletic Commission – or Comissao Atletica Brasileira de MMA (CABMMA) – which regulates UFC events in Brazil, has also agreed to the same standard and will make the change at next week’s UFC on FUEL TV 10 event in Fortaleza. Brazilian commission officials later confirmed their decision.
You may be asking yourself, “What exactly does this threshold change mean for UFC fighters moving forward?” Well, the basic idea is this: By raising the threshold to 150 ng/mL, the UFC is aiming to catch fighters who use marijuana in competition, rather than the days (or in Pat Healy’s case, weeks) before a fight.
While the debate over whether or not marijuana should even be tested for in the first place continues to rage on, the change suggests a shift in mindset regarding marijuana’s place in combat sports in general. It’s also one that Ratner hopes the Nevada State Athletic Commission will adopt in the near future as well:
I want to commend the committee. This goes along with the UFC’s thinking, as well as my own, that we’re moving progressively to the future, and times are changing.
As for the ongoing TRT debate? Well, the commission is trying to work that out as well, proposing a decrease in the acceptable T/E ratio amongst fighters from 6-to-1 to 4-to-1. No comment.
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?
UFC Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Marc Ratner revealed to MMAJunkie yesterday that the promotion has instituted a pair of new rules to act as deterrents against their fighters using performance enhancing drugs. First, all fighters who compete at international events will now be tested for performance-enhancing drugs. The UFC has traditionally hired independent local facilities to test fighters during events outside of North America, but in the past, only a few fighters per card were usually selected for testing.
The wave of botched tests is an embarrassing trend, and the UFC is clearly trying to get in front of it. Testing all their fighters at international events going forward will send a message to fighters who may have considered rolling the dice with banned substances, thinking that testing policies are a little more lax when formal athletic commissions aren’t running the show.
UFC Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Marc Ratner revealed to MMAJunkie yesterday that the promotion has instituted a pair of new rules to act as deterrents against their fighters using performance enhancing drugs. First, all fighters who compete at international events will now be tested for performance-enhancing drugs. The UFC has traditionally hired independent local facilities to test fighters during events outside of North America, but in the past, only a few fighters per card were usually selected for testing.
The wave of botched tests is an embarrassing trend, and the UFC is clearly trying to get in front of it. Testing all their fighters at international events going forward will send a message to fighters who may have considered rolling the dice with banned substances, thinking that testing policies are a little more lax when formal athletic commissions aren’t running the show.
And if the greater risk of a suspension isn’t enough of a deterrent, Ratner also stated that from now on, the UFC will no longer pay out their end-of-night performance bonuses until drug testing results come back. The policy changes will be in place this weekend at UFC on FX 7: Belfort vs Bisping in Sao Paulo, Brazil. According to MMAJunkie, a new Brazilian commission appointed by the International Mixed Martial Arts Federation (IMMAF) will oversee the event.
We know from experience that dealing with government types is shady business, but when idiots like Bob Reilly continue to distort the truth and screw with the livelihoods of countless people in the process, it starts to grate on our nerves.
Reilly was front and centre in the news today telling anyone who would listen that, like he’s been saying for weeks, the MMA legalization bill in New York likely won’t make it to the Assembly floor for a vote because there isn’t enough interest or support for the bill.
“If something does not have the votes to pass, we don’t bother taking it to the floor,” Reilly said.
So rather than prove there isn’t any underhandedness in deciding whether or not there really isn’t enough support for the bill by putting the issue to a vote, the opposition Democrats like Reilly and Speaker Sheldon Silver are likely to stall the bill in the Assembly’s Ways & Means Committee. That kids, is how a bill doesn’t become a law.
(Video courtesy YouTube/StocktonHeyBuddy)
We know from experience that dealing with government types is shady business, but when idiots like Bob Reilly continue to distort the truth and screw with the livelihoods of countless people in the process, it starts to grate on our nerves.
Reilly was front and centre in the news today telling anyone who would listen that, like he’s been saying for weeks, the MMA legalization bill in New York likely won’t make it to the Assembly floor for a vote because there isn’t enough interest or support for the bill.
“If something does not have the votes to pass, we don’t bother taking it to the floor,” Reilly said.
So rather than prove there isn’t any underhandedness in deciding whether or not there really isn’t enough support for the bill by putting the issue to a vote, the opposition Democrats like Reilly and Speaker Sheldon Silver are likely to stall the bill in the Assembly’s Ways & Means Committee. That kids, is how a bill doesn’t become a law.
The bill didn’t even make it onto the Committee’s agenda Thursday, and with time quickly running out for the current session, Reilly is probably high-fiving his cronies as he waits for the inevitable to occur. If the bill isn’t voted on by Monday, it’s another year without MMA in the Empire State.
“All we want up here is a vote,” said Marc Ratner, the UFC’s Vice President of Governmental and Legislative Affairs. “We want it to get to the floor, and let the members vote on it.”
According to the bill’s sponsor, Democrat Assemblyman Steve Englebright, legalizing the sport will mean an economic boom for the State.
“The state is missing out on the revenue which we could use for many other things that we need this year, such as funding for our schools, universities, libraries,” Englebright explained.
Reilly, of course, puts a different spin on it.
“We are trying to eradicate violence in this state, not approve it,” said Reilly. “This is very harmful to the fighters, this is not going to bring money into the state.”
Next on Reilly’s agenda will be having movies, television, video games, hunting, boxing, hockey, football and pro-wrestling banned from New York.
Filed under: Strikeforce, FanHouse Exclusive, NewsThe Strikeforce heavyweight grand prix will resume Saturday night in Dallas with a new rule in place: a sudden death round to settle a draw.
When the GP was first announced in January, Strikeforce CEO …
The Strikeforce heavyweight grand prix will resume Saturday night in Dallas with a new rule in place: a sudden death round to settle a draw.
When the GP was first announced in January, Strikeforce CEO Scott Coker said that a draw would be settled by an independent fourth judge who would “determine who advances or who wins based on the fighter’s overall performance in the fight.”
However, Marc Ratner, Zuffa’s vice president of regulatory affairs, informed MMA Fighting on Sunday that Zuffa, the new parent company of the Strikeforce, has decided that all tournament fights ending in a draw will now be settled by a fourth sudden death round. There will not be a fourth judge assigned to the tournament fights anymore.
Other than the finals of the tournament, all fights are scheduled for three five-minute rounds. The finals will be a five five-minute round fight.
The