The 12-to-6 downward elbow strike is officially legal in MMA.
A collective sigh of relief was let out by the MMA community when it was announced this past July that 12-to-6 elbows will no longer result in a foul in the Unified Rules of MMA. As of November 1, MMA fighters can unleash ground-and-pound elbows — or standing elbows if you’re creative enough — from all angles.
If it weren’t for one infamous moment in MMA history, the rule change might not have been as notable as it is. Unfortunately for two-division UFC champion Jon Jones, his only career loss came thanks to the strike’s delivery in his 2009 clash with Matt Hamill.
The loss happened in Las Vegas under the Nevada Athletic Commission, which Jones has fought under several times in his UFC career. California also hosted some of Jones’ final light heavyweight tilts before he jumped up a division and became UFC heavyweight champion, and while the Hamill bout wasn’t under the watch of California State Athletic Commission (CSAC) executive director Andy Foster, he reflected on the situation and rule change on “The Ariel Helwani Show” on Tuesday.
Foster admits he’s never one too in favor of rule changes, but in the case of Jones, he’s surprisingly supportive of the idea that the loss should get overturned to a no contest.
“The rule is what it was then, it’s different now,” Foster said. “It would be hard to go back. I’d be actually supportive of getting rid of that but it’s not my decision.
“I didn’t like the way it was enforced back then, but that’s 14 years ago. I think there were — look, we’re talking about 14 years later. At the time, I thought there were other ways you could handle that situation rather than flat giving the guy a loss.
“Disqualification should be the last resort a referee goes to,” he continued. “That should be after you’ve used all the tools in your toolbox. We train these guys and we teach them ad nauseam. There’s a lot of things you can go to and look at. Let’s do that before we disqualify people. Herb Dean, probably the gold standard referee in the world right now, you’ll see him and he’ll methodically go through everything before — I don’t know if I’ve seen Herb Dean disqualify somebody. I’m sure I have, but I can’t think of one right off the top of my head. Very good at going through a lot of different things.”
Ultimately, Jones is out of luck for the time being — he’ll head into his Nov. 16 return fight against Stipe Miocic at UFC 309 with a 27-1 (1 NC) record. The event will coincidentally be the promotion’s first pay-per-view to operate with 12-to-6 elbows.
UFC Edmonton formally kicked off the rule changes in the Octagon this past Saturday and a glimpse of the differences was already seen; Foster highlighted a moment from Cody Gibson’s unanimous decision win over Chad Anheliger.
While the 12-to-6 change was newsworthy, the biggest aspects of the recent updates to MMA’s unified ruleset were long-needed adjustments to the definition of a grounded fighter. Fighters are no longer able to “game the system,” which Foster admits was previously sensible to exploit. Instead of the confusion involving hands and palms to avoid kicks or knees to the head, a grounded fighter is now only considered grounded if any part of the body besides hands or feet is in contact with the ground.
“The change with the grounded fighter, that’s a real change,” Foster said. We didn’t see the [system gaming] this weekend and I think we’ll get rid of that.
“I’m not going to sit here and say it’s safer, but its more clear so I think athletes will probably become safer because they won’t stick their hand down on the ground without knowing they can be smashed. And if they get hit, they’re probably not going to do it again.”
Tweaks have been made on a state-by-state basis over the years regarding what was and wasn’t a downed fighter. Whether it was two hands down, one hand, fingertips or a palm, two palms, the rule has generally been a mess. Thankfully, that worry is gone, but Foster says it wasn’t without some resistance from the ABC — unlike the 12-to-6 elbow rule, which was effortless to remove.
“I had just had enough with it because it happened in the Contender [Series] not too long before that,” Foster said of the downed fighter controversy. “It was just causing a problem; every three events, you’d have one of these issues. That’s the kind of thing where regulation needs to fix this. We can fix this through a rule.
“It’s really hard to officiate that too. The referees were having a hard time. You’d get a different interpretation from a different referee. Now, it’s very clear. If a knee’s on the ground [or] something else is on the ground, you’re down. [If] it’s not, you’re not. It’s less restrictive, so the fighters probably feel better about it as well.
“With the grounded fighter [rule], it took a little bit of discussion because we tried something back in 2015 or ’16, whenever it was, and that didn’t work out as well because it didn’t take away enough restrictions,” he continued. “This just ended it. Either your knees down or it’s not.”
Getting everyone on the same page was smooth sailing outside of the regulators, according to Foster. Perhaps more surprisingly, the doctors and medical assistants had no issues or concerns.
“Any time the referee has to get involved and tell the top fighter if the [below] fighter’s down or not, that’s not great,” Foster said. “We don’t need referees having those levels of discussions with fighters.”
Promotions based outside of Asia still have some catching up to do with overall versatility in ground strike violence. Soccer kicks and knees to fully grounded opponents are still alive and well in organizations like RIZIN in Japan. Foster has stated that he could see himself getting swayed to go that far with changes one day. He’s not quite there yet, remaining hesitant after the memories of what dominant wrestlers were capable of in the PRIDE FC days.
Unfortunately, there are still some less-than-exciting rule issues to be figured out in MMA. One of the issues recently seen has been that of stalling or warnings that never result in fouls. Both are arguably the most frustrating to see not enforced as a viewer, and Foster boils it down to a referee problem.
“That’s a training issue and something we have talked about,” Foster said. “The refs are mic’d up so the first thing is if it’s not worth a warning, don’t open your mouth. Sometimes you’ll just have incidental contact and the fighter didn’t need the warning. If you have to discuss a warning with somebody, there’s soft warnings and hard warnings. If you give somebody a hard warning once, probably the next time a point needs to come off. If you’re not using your toolbox then we really need to find somebody else that will, because this idea of ‘warning, warning, warning,’ it’s a service to the other fighter.
“I think we should use the timidity foul more than we do. … Look, this is sports entertainment in some respects. I know we’re regulating a sport but part of it is sports entertainment. We have to keep this thing moving along. I don’t think just stalling somebody down, riding out the clock, trying to get the 10 [score] and the other person gets nine so you can win is the idea of what we’re doing here. So, let’s move it along. We’ve got to fight. It’s martial arts, you’ve got to fight.”
Ideally, Foster wants to see officials target a window of about 30 seconds for the benefit of the doubt in allowing potential stalling moments in fights. He knows they can only do much, but you have to set some precedent.
As problematic as those issues have been in MMA, they’re not the worst.
Extreme weight cutting, Foster still contends, is “the biggest problem in mixed martial arts.”
“There’s no question about it,” he said. “Here in California, we kind of get a lot of fighters [competing]. I’m not saying everyone, but we have a lot of notes and stuff on all these different athletes. So, we’re trying to get ahead of it. We check and almost annoy people because we do weight checks with them on a periodic basis.”
Foster and the CSAC have consistently made it a priority to manage weight-cutting properly. Early morning weigh-ins and second-day rehydration checks have become staples of California-based fights.
Weight cutting is not a science that has been perfected and it may never be. But from Foster’s chair, he’s willing to try new things.
“Another thing that I’ve been doing is — a couple weeks ago, I had to cancel the fight,” Foster said. “One of the fighters gained about 30 pounds and the other fighter lost weight from the weigh-in. That’s not OK, so we weren’t able to move forward with that fight.”
