When then #3 ranked UFC lightweight Eddie Alvarez and #9 ranked Dustin Poirier first met last year at UFC 211, Alvarez was looking to rebound from his KO title loss to Conor McGregor while Poirier could’ve used a nice jump up in the rankings to perhaps get another look at The Notorious One.
In an entertaining scrap, Poirier took the first round on all three judges’ scorecards and was clearly winning the second when Alvarez threw three knees towards a possibly-grounded Poirier’s head with about a minute left in the round. Referee Herb Dean stopped the action and would eventually call the fight, ruling it a no contest due to an accidental foul from Alvarez.
The UFC commentating team – Joe Rogan chief among them – clearly hadn’t spent time around Herb Dean or listened to his pre-fight rules meetings or they would’ve known when he officiates under the “old” rules any non-foot part of a fighter’s body must be weight bearing in order to make the fighter grounded. What’s weight bearing? If it’s a hand or fingers touching the canvas and you pull that hand away, will the fighter fall over?
Dean didn’t stop the action on the first two knees since Poirier’s canvas-touching hand wasn’t bearing weight, but Poirier’s knee was down on the final Alvarez knee to the head, and Dean then had a decision to make. Was Alvarez’s foul accidental or intentional? Once he called the fight, Dean ruled the foul accidental and the bout outcome a no contest since the fight was in the second round of a scheduled three.
If identical action plays out in the future, the fighter in Poirier’s shoes might now walk away with a technical decision win.
As first reported by Jason Floyd of The MMA Report, the Association of Boxing Commissions and Combative Sports (ABC) recently released a far more comprehensive description of the “Unified Rules of MMA” than it’s ever had in the past. Judging criteria and a list of fouls used to be what rule-minded folks could find from the ABC about their beloved sport of MMA. Its newest 10-page document (which can be downloaded here) covers numerous aspects of MMA officiating and regulation including bout duration, referee authority, referee procedures, instant replay, the affectionately nicknamed Piss, S#%t, and Puke rule, the KO vs. TKO distinction, fighter attire, fouls, judging, and finally, no contest vs. technical decision finishes.
When asked about the purpose of the expansive new document, ABC Approved Officials’ Trainer and MMA Rules and Regulations Committee member Rob Hinds noted that the target audience is actually athletic commissions. “The goal of this is to give the correct information mostly to all the regulating bodies,” Hinds explained. “So they can and will do something about it. The days of not having something sound in front of them as an excuse, those days are over. They now have it right in front of them to where they can take this directly to their legislation, or whatever their process is, and they can get this done. So we’re really going to see who wants to invoke change and who just doesn’t care about the sport.”
What Hinds is getting at is that technically there are no rules in MMA, there are regulations and criteria. Each state, local, or tribal commission sets the sport’s regulations within its jurisdiction, which we casually call the “rules.” For some commissions, changing their regulations can be a long and arduous process.
According to Hinds, the new document has been extremely well received by many athletic commissions and some states have already taken it “and planted it right on their website, right in their regulations, done.” To Hinds, this was “a really big missing piece” in the background of the sport.
As for those regulatory bodies who still want to nitpick individual items they don’t like such as the 2017 definition of a grounded fighter or heel kicks to the kidneys, the first line of the ABC’s document says they cannot claim to use the unified rules and whatever else they ultimately use “shall be referred to by the name of the commission sanctioning the/an event.”
As a licensed referee and judge myself, every item of the new unified rules document was familiar except one: The use of a half-the-scheduled-rounds-plus-one-second (½ + 1) threshold for no contest/technical decision determinations following accidental fouls and technical decision/technical draw determinations following intentional fouls that cause injury, but where the fight continues and is stopped at a later point due to said injury. Since the latter is so extremely rare, we’ll just focus on the no contest/technical decision determination. It’s also pretty rare, but Alvarez and Poirier fans are certainly aware of it.
The industry standard was essentially a 2/3, 3/5 rule. If a fight was stopped due to injury from an accidental foul in the second round or earlier of a three-round fight or the third round or earlier of a five-round fight, the outcome would be a no contest. If the fight was stopped in the third round of a three-rounder or fourth round or later of a five-rounder, it would go to the scorecards for a technical decision.
At its most recent annual meeting this summer, ABC members voted on a ½ + 1 standard for one-, two-, and four-round fights – things you might see more of on the regional and local scene or in tournament structures. The new ABC document recommends using a ½ + 1 standard for all MMA bouts, including three and five rounders.
Certain areas more recently addressed by the ABC’s MMA rules committee are italicized and underlined in the new document including referee authority, instant replay, loss of bodily functions, KO vs. TKO, and the ½ + 1 standard. Some of these were voted in by the full ABC body last year and others this year, while the ½ + 1 standard for three- and five-round fights remains a recommendation. The document notes areas of recommendations, but the fact remains that the entire document captures the official “Unified Rules of MMA,” and any deviation must be called something else.
As Hinds explained, this was done for a reason. “You have to remember, most of these things still haven’t been implemented in a lot of places,” Hinds said. “So the other thing we did by highlighting and italicizing is a solid reminder for those of you who haven’t taken part in the updates, here’s what they are and here’s how they look on this document. For some of them it’s just a reminder of what’s already been passed and for the other things like the half bout plus one second, that’s going to be a recommendation and going forward if we need to vote on it in the future we will. We are going to continue to recommend that if it goes half the bout plus one second, we can go to the judges’ scorecards.”
So there you have it. Future Poirier-Alvarez 1 situations could end up a technical decision win for whoever the future Poirier fighter is, depending on whether the athletic commission in question chose to follow that part of the newest, more comprehensive Unified Rules of MMA. My guess is the ½ + 1 standard will be pretty uncontroversial and fans, media, and fight commentators should prep themselves for its use. But it may not be immediate in some areas as even well-intentioned athletic commissions are sometimes slow to change their regulations.
As Hinds put it, “At the end of the day, we can’t tell any regulating bodies what to use and what not to use. But what we’re saying is now that we have all this in writing, you can’t refer to it as something that it’s not.”
Hinds also noted that future MMA officials will be trained specifically on the new ABC unified rules document. And it’s already begun, starting with Kevin MacDonald’s referee and judging students last weekend.
For the most up-to-date MMA unified rules, give the ABC’s new document a read. But remember, each individual athletic commission ultimately chooses its own regulations for the sport while in its jurisdiction.
As for UFC 230 tomorrow night, a 2017 New York State Athletic Commission bulletin says all professional MMA bouts in the state are fought under the unified rules “as adopted and amended by the ABC.” So the ABC’s newest document, including the new ½ + 1 standard for no contests/technical decisions, should be in play.
Paul writes about MMA analytics and officiating at Bloody Elbow and MMA business at Forbes. He’s also a licensed referee and judge for the California Amateur Mixed Martial Arts Organization (CAMO). Follow him @MMAanalytics.