The List: Rules and sanctions that really grind our gears

For too long, our writers’ hyper-specific arguments have been confined to the private corridors of the Internet. Welcome to The List, where we take their instant message bickerings, add a little polish, and make them public. Today, we look at some of the rules – both in and out of the cage – that really draw our ire as viewers and reporters.

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1. That pesky three-point stance

Demetrious Johnson and Chris Cariaso

Mike Bohn: The unified rules of MMA have a number of serious flaws. If focus must be directed on just one, there’s no more frustrating rule than the three-point stance, which protects a fighter from absorbing a knee or kick to the head while “downed.”

The Unified Rules define a grounded opponent as “any fighter who has more than the just the soles of their feet on the ground (i.e. could have one shin or one finger down to be considered a downed fighter).” In recent years, this has led to fighters placing a hand on the mat to qualify for the extra protection offered to a grounded opponent.

The problem with the term “downed” is that it’s been twisted to a point of abuse. When knees to the head of a downed opponent were first banned in 2001, the sport was still in its infancy. The rules needed to be cleaned up enough to convince Athletic Commissions to sanction this type of competition, which is exactly what happened.

That decision served its purpose at the time, but well over a decade later, fighters have flipped the rule from a safety measure into a way to stall fights and goad opponents into fouls. Those types of actions should not be tolerated, and quite frankly, the best solution is to eliminate the rule entirely.

While kicks or stomps to downed fighters should never be allowed, the ability to knee a fighter when downed or in a three-point stance would completely alter offensive dynamic of the sport, especially for grapplers.

It’s annoying to watch fighter stuck in a bad position on the ground simple turtle up and block punches because they know they can with little repercussions. For the most part, punches to the head from such positions are tolerable for the athletes. But how does everything change when it’s a powerful knee that lands? Fighters certainly wouldn’t be content to just stick around as they do now.

Whether or not changes are made over time remains to be seen, but referees are becoming privy to the fact certain fighters abuse the rule in a way which it was not originally intended. UFC Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Marc Ratner agrees.

“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,” Ratner said in April 2013. “That’s not what the rule is for. That has to be looked at.”

“I’m going to work with our attorneys on the language. 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. I’m going to get the right verbiage for it. That one is one that’s come into play recently in the past couple years that needs to be changed.”

As sports evolve, the rules typically evolve with it. However, MMA already has such an identity crisis that a notable change to the rules is nearly impossible, especially when each commission has the right to implementing its own regulations.

It needs to happen eventually, though. Because as time goes on, the athletes are only becoming more intelligent and continue to find workarounds to the rules to a point where match outcomes are compromised.

2. Pointless commission protesting

Francisco Rivera and Urijah Faber

Steven Marrocco: Having been in this business for a minute, I’ve gotten fairly good at predicting when a fighter is going to appeal a bad referee call. I do so with a lot of cynicism rooted in years of watching state athletic commissions at work.

When I confirmed that Francisco Rivera’s rep would appeal the outcome of his submission loss to Urijah Faber, my first thought was no different than it usually is in these cases: Don’t waste your time.

Here’s probably what’s going to happen when Rivera goes to the Nevada State Athletic Commission for justice: His camp will put together a packet, probably with video of the eyepoke that preceded his loss, and they’ll send it to the commission with an argument for changing the call. NSAC Executive Director Bob Bennett will review it, deny the appeal, and everyone will go on their merry way.

It’s a real shame, of course. Anyone with eyes could see Rivera was blinded by the foul and got submitted before he could recover. The fight should be ruled a no-contest, just like when Daron Cruickshank got poked by K.J. Noons this past Saturday at UFC on FOX 13. But the commission will rule – and despite a “no comment” on why instant replay wasn’t utilized, probably already has ruled – that because referee Mario Yamasaki didn’t see it, it effectively didn’t happen, and Rivera will get the shaft.

Look, there’s so much action and so many split-second decisions referees make in that cage, it seems virtually impossible not to screw up at one point or another. I found this out firsthand three years ago when I took a course in MMA refereeing – I failed the practical exam. Even the best referees, the ones we all recognize when they get their one-second nod from the camera prior to a fight, still get it wrong from time to time. (Some more than others – insert your favorite ref here.)

When you’re a fighter and half of your pay depends on that call, it’s no wonder you’d look for some sort of recompense. And of course, we live in a pretty litigious world, even though the commission’s legal standards are nowhere close to criminal court when it comes to adjudicating disputes.

Yet still, the commission has such a great opportunity to do right by the fighters by not a) leaning so heavily on the referee’s discretion when it comes to fight outcomes, and b) almost blindly defending bad calls. They could put the matter before the commission and let the evidence speak for itself, and Rivera might get some justice. They could override the submission loss and declare it a no contest. That would be the fair and right thing to do, rather than just falling back on the mechanics of bureaucracy.

It’s the commission’s job to protect the health and safety of the fighters. But sometimes, I think the word welfare should be included, so as to look out for flaws and errors and fix them. I think they owe the fighters that much.

3. Flaws in the 10-point must system

Diego Sanchez

Ben Fowlkes: So you want to talk about problems with the way the powers that be run this sport? Brother, I could do that all day, but if I’ve got to choose just one and I’m going to go all greatest hits on you and focus on MMA judging. Specifically, I’m annoyed at the way we use the 10-point system in MMA, because it turns what could be a fine method into an exploitable mess.

Here’s the way scoring currently works in MMA: You win a round by a tiny, negligible, almost imperceivable margin? You get a 10-9. You win a round by totally controlling every single second of it? You also get a 10-9. How does that make any sense at all?

In order to squeeze a 10-8 out of these people you have to nearly decapitate someone, which means that you could get your butt thoroughly kicked for one round, but as long as you keep it close and end with a takedown in the final 30 seconds of the other two rounds, you’ll probably still win. This is madness, gentlemen. Pure madness.

Have these judges never wondered why we use a 10-point system as opposed to, say, a two or a three-point must? Could it be so that there is a range of numbers to choose from in order to express the degree to which one fighter won the round? Who decided that the only numbers you could write down on the scorecard were 10, nine, and eight? Why hasn’t that person been gouged in the eye by Urijah Faber for inflicting this on us?

The frustrating thing is how we’ve all internalized this system by now. We think this is how it’s supposed to be. Watch Twitter during a really even fight and you’ll see people saying, “Wow, close round. Not sure how to score that one, but I’ll go 10-9 for [fighter x].” Really? If it’s so close that you’re not sure how to score it, how about a 10-10? And if one fighter is easily beating the other, why not a 10-8? When one guy seems lucky to still know his own name when the horn sounds, nothing’s stopping you from scoring it a 10-7. Stop limiting yourself by believing that the way it has been done is the way it must be done. This stuff wasn’t handed down on stone tablets from atop Mt. Xyience. We can mold it to fit our purposes.

The point is, everything we need to make the system work is already in there. It’s just a matter of stepping out of these insanely narrow boundaries and actually using it. Now then, which of you fine judges would like to go first?