Issue 088
May 2012
Busting myths and misconceptions around mixed martial arts’ least appreciated and most misunderstood regulations
Despite what the many post-event outpourings of malice across the internet might suggest whenever the Unified Rules of mixed martial arts create controversy, the document’s authors had only good intentions way back in April 2001.
Nevertheless, contention and confusion with mixed martial arts’ rulebook is rife, whether it’s applied in UFC main events in Las Vegas via Nevada’s document or independently by promotions around the world. Revered referee of nearly 20 years, ‘Big’ John McCarthy, and Nick Lembo, the highly respected counsel to the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board (NJSACB), were two of only a select handful of men responsible for pioneering one agreed rule-set for MMA. And both were present back in April 2001 in New Jersey at the meeting called to draft the document known and employed today as the Unified Rules.
Fighters Only presented these pillars of MMA’s rule-making and rule-applying community with some of the most hated or most confusing directives and sought their explanations to set the record straight. Which blows to the back of the head are legal? And when does a throw become an outlawed ‘spike’? You’re about to find out…
1 DOWNWARD 12-TO-6 ELBOWS ARE OUTLAWED
They’re the foul responsible for the sole loss on UFC light heavyweight phenom Jon Jones’ wildly impressive 15-1 record, and probably the most despised rule in the book. Despite opposition at the time, dropping an elbow with the forearm vertically in a 12-to-6, floor-to-ceiling position is outlawed under the Unified Rules. Any other orientation or direction is legal, however.
Lembo, counsel to the NJSAC, remembers the reason for the rule’s creation well. “Initially that was not a foul. Downward pointed elbow strikes were legal. However, on an IFC show in September 2000 – it’s also known as the ‘Gan McGee rule’ – McGee was much taller than his opponent and he was throwing downward pointed elbow strikes kind of toward the base of the neck of his opponent. The doctors who were helping us say [MMA] can be regulated and is as safe as other combat sports were insistent that needed to be taken out, that you couldn’t have that type of downward pointed elbow.” The doctors also had concerns about the strike hitting a grounded groggy combatant around the eye while the back of their head was on the canvas.
Veteran referee McCarthy recalls the rule found legs thanks in part to the understanding of a doctor at the original 2001 meeting, and, ultimately, the arguments to stump the rule were futile. “When we were talking about it trying to get him to understand, but eventually someone from the UFC said to me, ‘John, don’t worry about it, it’s no big deal.’ So I basically shut up about it, because I was telling them, ‘It’s not what you’re saying.’ [The doctor] said, ‘I have a friend who’s a martial arts instructor and he breaks big blocks of ice with that elbow strike.’ It was like, ‘You don’t understand, that’s a trick!’” Regardless, the rule remains, unlikely ever to be removed.
2 A THROW IS A ‘SPIKING’ MANEUVER WHEN THE SUBJECT’S HEAD AND LEGS ARE INVERTED
This one comes down to wording. In 2009, the Association of Boxing Commissions met to discuss clarifications to existing rules. One of which was the foul of “spiking an opponent to the canvas on his or her head or neck.” In 2009, this was honed to: “A pile driver is considered to be any throw where you control your opponent’s body placing his feet straight up in the air with his head straight down and then forcibly drive your opponents head into the canvas or flooring material.”
Which for many begs the question, why do the legs being straight up in the air make it a foul? Wouldn’t a fighter’s legs being at right angles to the body with the head straight down still be just as dangerous? According to McCarthy the explanation is intended to communicate the issue of control. “What the rule was meant to do is protect a fighter who was unable to protect himself at the time of the throw.”
So, in a pile driver situation, where a fighter’s body, head and neck are inverted and restricted and the torso is being held by the opponent, the fighter is unable to protect themselves. “I’m in control of you and if I decide to sit down or drop to my knees and drop your head into the mat it can cause you a devastating injury,” explains John. “Spiking is a pile driver. That’s illegal; you will be disqualified.”
Sitting down on an Iranian lift will see the same result – where a fighter’s torso is inverted behind his opponent, as the opponent pins the fighter’s legs to his shoulders.
The issue has its genesis in the original, more basic directive that tried to make the distinction between where a fighter is thrown or driven onto his head because they chose not to remove themselves from the position, describes Lembo – such as when a fighter has an armbar and finds their head slammed to the mat by their opponent because they chose not to break the submission.
As he explains: “If the [fighter] is in some type of control position of where they could adjust how they land but they’re just refusing to or just don’t do it, then it’s on them if they land on their head and neck.” McCarthy recalls that at the April 2001 Unified Rules meeting, there was a major concern about all throws not just spiking maneuvers. In this instance the Olympics came to the rescue.
“Jeff Blatnick [former UFC commissioner] and I put together a DVD of the 1996 Olympics with all the judo competitions, Greco-Roman wrestling, freestyle wrestling, with the major throws of Olympic athletes being thrown basically on their head, saying, ‘Look, you have to understand this is something that’s done in the Olympics, done every day in competitions around the world. This is not what you’re thinking.’”
3 STRIKES TO THE BACK OF THE HEAD
Perhaps one of the most misunderstood rules in the entire sport. Confusion still remains, despite the exact area of the back of the head where a fighter cannot strike an opponent being outlined by the Association of Boxing Commissions in 2009 upon reviewing the Unified Rules.
The ABC’s exact direction is as follows: “A strike that touches the ear is generally acceptable… Strikes behind the crown of the head and above the ears are not permissible within the Mohawk area. Strikes below the top of the ear are not permissible within the nape of the neck area.”
Despite general fan misunderstanding, Lembo says that wording should be what’s adhered to, adding that the rule also covers strikes to the spine between the tailbone and the neck as fouls. Despite the clarification, many erroneously believe the correct definition is the headphones rule, where any spot behind a pair of headphones is off limits. That was never part of the regulations of any state says McCarthy. “California talked about it but it never went into effect.”
4 CALIFORNIA DOES NOT ALLOW LINEAR KICKS TO THE KNEE
The Unified Rules is a base for all North American commissions, and for many independent international promotions, but they can adopt additional more stringent regulations. Something California chose to do regarding strikes to the knee. “It’s no linear kicks,” confirms McCarthy, “meaning straight attacks to the front of the knee trying to drive and hyperextend the knee backwards, that is what’s illegal in California.
“It’s also illegal in Tennessee. There are certain states that do not allow what they call linear knee strikes. In the Unified Rules it’s allowed, but every state has the ability to add something if they want… I can do a roundhouse kick right to the side of your knee, that’s legal.”
Lembo says the rule was assessed in 2009 following UFC middleweight champion Anderson Silva’s use of the risky strikes against Thales Leites at UFC 97 in 2009. “The ruling on that [from the ABC committee] was, no, the direct linear kick to the knee joint would not be a foul, that would be acceptable. In terms of the amateurs, that depends by jurisdiction.”
5 YOU CAN GRAB YOUR OWN SHORTS BUT NOT YOUR OPPONENT’S
Referees admonishing competitors for grasping their opponent’s shorts is a common occurrence in the cage, but less known is the rule that fighters are permitted to hold their own shorts and gloves to their advantage. Josh Koscheck employed this very regulation when he fought Georges St Pierre for the first time at UFC 74 in 2007, preventing a kimura by latching onto his trunks.
Not so much contentious as it is unknown, the rule, says Lembo, naturally came to be in those early rule discussions as a result of parties wanting the option of wearing a gi.
McCarthy explains: “The whole part of it was you couldn’t use your opponent’s gloves or shorts, grab a hold of them in a fashion that you were trying to control your opponent’s position or body control by the use of that material.” John adds, however, that grabbing over the entire glove and holding onto the hand is fine. Likewise, he says he’s seen fighters latching onto their own gloves to defend a choke – also perfectly acceptable.
6 PRESSURE POINT ATTACKS WERE ONCE FOULS
Contrary to the belief of some, pressure point attacks are not prohibited in mixed martial arts competition. The confusion stems from prior to UFC 15 in 1997 when McCarthy, then an integral part of the UFC hierarchy, was asked to draw up a set of rules to encourage the sport’s reintroduction to the lucrative cable TV platform. To his list of fouls, which included items such as kicking a downed opponent, John decided to add more gravitas to the document by outlawing ‘pressure point attacks’.
“The real fact of the matter is: when you’re trying to do that against a true fighting person it’s not an effective technique,” admits John. “I put it in there because it just looked good. But I knew by putting it in I wasn’t going to be changing the fighting at all because it wasn’t something that was being used anyway because it wasn’t effective.”
7 YOU CAN AXE KICK A GROUNDED OPPONENT BUT NOT STOMP
Stomping any area of a grounded opponent is illegal under the Unified Rules, but what even some rule junkies don’t realize is axe kicking your canvas-attracted foe (a straightened leg rising and descending in an arc) to the body or legs is perfectly acceptable. So why are fighters allowed to use what appears to be one dangerous action and not another?
“When you look at the wording of the rules, fighters are allowed to kick the body or legs of a grounded opponent,” starts McCarthy. “So if you have an axe kick, which is an actual trained kick, you’ve already just said that kicks are allowed. A stomp is different… If you bring your leg up and it bends at a 90-degree angle towards your knee it’s going to be a stomp and it’s going to be illegal.”
Lembo adds the visual appearance of the blows was also a factor in deciding what was a foul back in 2001. “We’re also looking at the growth of the sport and general acceptance everywhere. Stomping somebody on the ground is not too palatable.”
8 BEARDS WERE NOT PERMISSIBLE IN THE ORIGINAL UNIFIED RULES
More specifically a number of States’ documents specify fighters “must be clean and present a tidy appearance.” Presumably something ragged mullet man UFC heavyweight Roy Nelson and caveman-alike Clay Guida have not been called on. The original 2001 Unified Rules specifies: “All contestants shall be cleanly shaven immediately prior to competition, except that a contestant may wear a closely cropped mustache.”
According to Lembo, that’s one of the few rulings which has been dropped – as indicated by the heavily bearded Kimbo Slice’s many appearances in the ring. “It sounds silly but these things were written back in the days of infancy,” Nick says. “Initially the concern was using a beard as an abrasive on the skin of the opponent, or a cut, or on the eyes of an opponent.”
AND THEN THERE WERE RULES…
Veteran referee ‘Big’ John McCarthy and long-serving counsel to the NJSACB Nick Lembo recount how the sport’s commandments were authored back in April 2001.
Lembo: “The New Jersey State Athletic Control Board made a draft rule-set in conjunction with Jeff Blatnik’s Mixed Martial Arts Council rule-set and then used that under observation. Then we began, in 2000, taking a formal role in the events. ‘You need medical insurance. You need bout approval, ringside physicians, pre-fight exams.’… Then we oversaw one fight at the Thunder at the Tropicana, one show on the IFC, and one show with the UFC under the draft Unified Rules and then the one show under Zuffa and the current ownership structure. Then we had that meeting in April of 2001 where we sat down and discussed what we had seen and where we would like it to go.”
McCarthy: “When the UFC went to go back to New Jersey for UFC 30 at the Trump Taj Mahal, Larry Hazzard, who was a famous boxing referee then became commissioner of the NJSACB, there were things he looked at and said, ‘Why does one show do it this way, and another do it this way?’… He called together a meeting of the different promoters from around the world. April 2001 was the date and he invited Terry Trebilcock from King of the Cage, Pride had two representatives, the UFC had Dana White, Lorenzo Fertitta, Joe Silva, Jeff Blatnik, myself, were all there. You had Paul Smith from the IFC. The NJSACB was the only commission there aside from Marc Ratner, then with the Nevada State Commission, who was listening in on a teleconference… There were a lot of things everyone was fine with, then there became real, major differences with Pride wanting to do things as far as clothing. Larry was very much against that. ‘These fighters should not be coming in with anything other than shorts and a mouthpiece.’ He didn’t want any kind of footwear… Larry was really the one to bring everyone together and try to get them to agree. Not everyone did but in the end it was, ‘This is what we’re going to go with.’”
