Trading Shots: With Ryan Jimmo floored by a groin kick, what's a referee to do?

Ryan Jimmo

In this week’s Trading Shots, MMAjunkie columnist Ben Fowlkes and retired UFC/WEC fighter Danny Downes discuss that gut-wrenching kick to the groin that Ryan Jimmo suffered in Goiania, Brazil on Saturday night, and what should be done about unpunished, seemingly inadvertent fouls in MMA.

Fowlkes: Danny, last night at UFC Fight Night 67 the big homie Ryan Jimmo took a kick to the groin from Francimar Barroso that necessitated a puke bucket and a check to see if his cup was still intact. Then, after a few minutes had elapsed, he was expected to nod his head, touch gloves, and get back in the fight.

That’s kind of crazy, right? Especially when you consider the severity of the foul and the complete lack of any repercussions for the guy who committed it. If this is how it works, is there any reason not to kick your opponent in the pills (or poke him in the eye) at least once in every fight?

Downes: I’m assuming when you eloquently refer to kicking one’s opponent “in the pills,” you’re not talking about inadvertent fouls. As much as it makes me uncomfortable to advocate purposely fouling someone, I can’t really think of a reason not to. I mean, you could talk about “sportsmanship,” but you can’t pay your bills with that.

There are plenty of things that fighters do to gain an advantage. You can hook your fingers into the gloves, or grab the fence to prevent a takedown. Are those actions any different from kicking your opponent in the groin? From pass interference in football to the whole “hack DeAndre Jordan” strategy we saw in the NBA playoffs, calculated fouls are elements of every sport. Especially in the latter case, though, it slows down the game and robs the sport (and fans) of its nature.

Nobody watches basketball for free throws, and nobody watches MMA so they can see a guy dig his hands down his pants as the ref deducts points.

The real question, though, is what can be done about it? The rules are already in place. Should we see more deductions or disqualifications? Even if they start deducting more points, a well-placed groin shot can take the momentum out of your opponent. Also, if you’re tired, it can give you some time to recover.

How can the referee distinguish between inadvertent and purposeful fouls? When it comes to those inside leg kicks, it’s very easy to commit a foul. The same thing with eye pokes. If you’re a fighter that uses a lot of hand play and parries, why should you change your style?

Fowlkes: You know the big difference between fouls in MMA and fouls in those other sports you mentioned? Nobody gets a warning for pass interference. Instead they get penalized right away, because the ref knows that the players all know the rules. They don’t need to be reminded of them during every single game. That’s what I’d like to see MMA do.

You’re right that it’s tough to distinguish between accidental and intentional fouls. That’s why I think we should stop trying. You kicked the other guy in the balls? You poked him in the eye? We’ll call time, maybe do a quick review of the replay to confirm that we really saw what we thought we saw, then deduct a point from the offending fighter. Whether you meant to do it or not, you committed a foul and you will be punished.

It still doesn’t completely solve the problem, since point deductions only matter if the fight goes to the judges. But don’t we have to do something? Isn’t it just a little too ridiculous to watch Jimmo heave into a bucket while Barroso suffers nothing more than a stern talking to? How could he not have derived a competitive advantage as a result of violating the rules, whether he did it on purpose or not?

Downes: You’re right, Barroso’s actions did not have reciprocal consequences. Jimmo, the victim in this occasion, was harmed by the foul and his opponent received no punishment. At the same time, I’m a little bit leery of treating all fouls the same. I wouldn’t necessarily call your “all kicks to a person’s crotch are created equal” approach a progressive stance.

An MMA fight can be chaotic. Deducting points on every foul just trades one unfairly punished party for another. Would a draconian stance on fouls lead to a reduction? Maybe, but I think the results would be minimal.

It may be “a little too ridiculous” to watch Jimmo roll in pain for five minutes while Barroso gets tsk-tsked, but the changes you’re proposing seem almost as bad. Mistime an inside leg kick? Lose a point. Try to stuff a clinch attempt and poke your opponent in the eye? Lose a point. Soccer kick an opponent in the face when he’s down? Lose a point. You can’t argue that all those fouls are equivalent. Yes, all those fouls may result in a competitive advantage, but you can’t argue that intent doesn’t matter.

Much like nü-metal and 20 different mohawk variants, isn’t this just something we’re stuck with in MMA? We should try to find solutions, but the solutions seem more problematic than the current state. Replay would only slow things down, and how would replay have helped things last night? Jimmo still would have needed five minutes to recover and Barroso would still be fine.

Fowlkes: Barroso might have been fine physically, at least compared to Jimmo, who was absolutely not fine physically. But Barroso also would have ended that round knowing that, at best, it was 9-9 on the judges’ scorecards. Barroso wound up winning the decision with two 30-27 scores, so you’re right that one point deduction wouldn’t have changed the outcome here, but he wouldn’t have known that yet. He would have had to wonder whether he just cost himself his best shot at a win, which might have made him a little more careful about where he put his kicks.

I understand that a fight is chaotic. So is a tackle football game, much of the time. Still, if you grab the other guy’s facemask the refs aren’t trying to hear you explain that everything was happening so fast.

I won’t argue that intent doesn’t matter. It definitely does, as does the result of the foul. But in most cases, intent is difficult to judge. The effect of being kicked in the groin or poked in the eye is a lot more apparent.

The thing that really sucks about the way we handle these fouls in MMA is that the pressure is all on the fighter who just got fouled. Jimmo is writhing on the floor, hoping his cup isn’t cracked in two, and the crowd is looking at him like, Get up and get on with the fight already. If he had called it off there, saying he was too hurt to continue, imagine the crap he would have taken from fans.

We’re so worried about overreacting to fouls in this sport – possibly because it’s a sport where referee intervention is relatively rare, and almost never takes place without altering the action in some permanent way – that we’d rather do nothing at all. We just want to move on as quickly as possible so we can pretend it didn’t matter. But, honestly, when have you ever been struck in the balls where it didn’t feel like it mattered?

Downes: There was that one bachelor party, but that doesn’t really apply to this discussion. You do raise a good point about how we normally react to fouls. It didn’t make for the best television, but I was glad that Jimmo took the five minutes allotted. Not only that, I was extremely pleased that the referee let him take the full five minutes. Most of the time I see the ref trying to rush the fighter and restart the action as quickly as possible. Why? If you’re allotted five minutes, you should be able to take as much of that time as you need.

You’re also right that when fighters decide they can’t go on, fans and media can’t wait to blast them. It took Jamie Varner nearly half a decade to get fans to forget about WEC 38.

But even if we were to solve the perception problem, it doesn’t solve the actual problem. Deducting more points will change fighters’ strategy, but it could lead to more tentativeness. You can’t perfectly place every single shot. Sure, you can focus on accuracy a bit more, but you have to just let kicks go sometimes. Expecting every kick to finds its mark 100% of the time is unrealistic.

A lot of the times, low blows are caused by the person who’s on the receiving end. I can time my kick, but if my opponent moves in or out unexpectedly, it changes the trajectory of a kick. This is especially true when you have opponents of opposite stances fighting one another. Maybe we should listen to the advice of Mickey Goldmill and outlaw southpaws altogether.

Whether it’s inside the cage or outside, we all want to have a clean sport, one free of rule-breakers of any type. That way, the athletic contest feels authentic and we can determine the best man or woman. We don’t like cheaters (inadvertent or not), because it cheapens the accomplishments. We don’t like it when people win by cheating, but we also won’t like it when people win by technicality. Dammed if you do, dammed if you don’t. Man, isn’t that a “kick in the pills?”

For complete coverage of UFC Fight Night 67, check out the UFC Events section of the site.

Ben Fowlkes is MMAjunkie and USA TODAY’s MMA columnist. Danny Downes, a retired UFC and WEC fighter, is an MMAjunkie contributor who also writes for UFC.com and UFC 360. Follow them on twitter at @benfowlkesMMA and @dannyboydownes.