Cody Gibson made a small slice of history at UFC Edmonton.
MMA’s premier promotion returned to Canada to a stacked card of fights topped by Brandon Moreno’s win over Amir Albazi on Saturday night.
Hot on the heels of UFC 308, the show wasn’t massively anticipated by fans, but they were intrigued by one particular facet of the event.
UFC Edmonton saw the introduction of two new rule changes, which came into effect on November 1 and were enforced for the first time this weekend.
Cody Gibson enters the UFC history books
The most notable rule change was the legalizing of 12-to-6 elbows.
For those who might want a bit more clarity; the 12-to-6 elbows, also known as the ‘North-South elbow’ will now be deemed a legal strike as long as it doesn’t land on the back of an opponent’s head.
Jon Jones was disqualified for throwing the strike in his lone MMA loss.
Ever since, there’s been a campaign to legalize 12-to-6 elbows, which was outlawed when the Unified Rules of MMA were created in 2000.
Now they are legal after a rule change, and Gibson was quick to make use of the controversial strikes during his unanimous decision win over Chad Anheliger.
The Ultimate Fighter 31 finalist was utterly dominant from the first bell as he utilized his superior grappling skills to keep the fight where he wanted it and ultimately secure 30-27, 30-27, and 30-26 scorecards from the judges.
During one wrestling exchange, ‘The Renegade’ unleashed a series of the newly legal 12-to-6 elbows to cut his opponent, but he didn’t realize he’d made history by doing so.
Gibson said during a post-fight press conference: “The ref came up to me after the fight and said, ‘You were the first person ever to cut a guy with a 12-6 elbow, legally.’
“I said, ‘If nothing else, I will go down in history books for the one right, right?'”
Jon Jones wants his lone loss overturned
Jon Jones was quick to react when 12-to-6 elbows were made legal.
In 2009, the UFC heavyweight champion infamously suffered his lone career loss when he was disqualified for hitting Matt Hamill with several illegal 12-to-6 elbows’
‘Bones’ was dominating their fight until referee Steve Mazzagatti decided he had thrown several straight-up, straight-down elbow strikes to a grounded opponent and disqualified him.
The 27-1 two-weight champion appealed the result but was unsuccessful.
Now he hopes to get the lone loss overturned, with a little bit of help.
“Undefeated then, undefeated now. Dana White we gotta get that loss out of the history books,” Jones wrote on Instagram alongside a picture from his fight with Hamill.
It seems unlikely that Jones will be successful almost two decades on from the controversial call, but that won’t stop him from trying to turn the loss into a no-contest.