Big John: Differing rules unfair for fighters, fans, refs

In April of 2001, the California State Athletic Commission voted on a set of rules that became the basis of the Unified Rules of mixed martial arts. Unfortunately, it was determined that at the time the CSAC had no jurisdiction over the sport. In September of the same year, the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board started allowing mixed martial arts events to take place, to observe the relatively new sport, in order to develop a comprehensive set of rules. On April 3, 2001, the NJSACB held a widely-attended meeting and a uniform set of rules was agreed upon, that came to be known as the Unified Rules. This was one of two basic rules sets being used in the early days of the sport, the other being Matt Hume’s “Pride Rules,” and in time came to define the sport.

The Association of Boxing Commissions has a Rules and Regulations committee that works all year to refine the Unified Rules, and once a year makes recommendations at the annual convention. These are then voted upon, and if successful, become part of the Unified Rules.

At the 2016 Association of Boxing Commissions convention, several changes to the Unified Rules of mixed martial arts were proposed by the ABC Rules and Regulations committee. The dream team included:
Fighters:
•Randy Couture
•Jeremy Horn
•Matt Hughes
Referees
•’Big’ John McCarthy
•Robert Hinds
•Kevin McDonald
Regulators 
•Sean Wheelock
•Matt Woodruff
•Brian Dunn, and,
Dr. David Watson.

The group proposed a refining of the definition of a downed fighter, a means for referees to more ably stop eye pokes, a lifting of the prohibition on heel kicks to the kidneys, new judging criteria, and more. More complete details can be found here.

The new rules passed with near unanimity. Rhonda Utley-Herring, representing the New Jersey Athletic Commission, voted no, and offered a detailed explanation as to why. Mississippi voted not present. And there was an abstention from Tennessee, which no longer had a functioning athletic commission.

However, Mixed martial arts is governed in North America at the state, provincial, and tribal level, not nationally. Thus there can be varying interpretations of rules, as you move from commission to commission.

The new Unified Rules were set to take effect on January 1, although some commissions instituted them more quickly. The influential California State Athletic Commission, for example, adopted the new rules on December 10. States that did not adopt the new Unified Rules on January 1 include Colorado, Maryland, Missouri, New Jersey, Ohio, Virginia, and South Dakota. So right now, for example, the definition of a grounded fighter differs from state to state.

During a recent appearance on MMAjunkie Radio, the Father of MMA Referees, ‘Big’ John McCarthy, lamented the fractured state of the Unified Rules. He noted that MMA is just 23 years old, which is chronologically makes MMA something like the state of Football in the early 1900s.

The truth is, we’re the single-bar [helmet] or the double-bar, said McCarthy, as transcribed by MMAjunkie. The leather helmet is when we weren’t allowed to stop the fights, no rules – stuff like that.

You look at the NFL – the NFL is a business where no matter if they go to New York or Wisconsin in Green Bay, they go down to Dallas or San Francisco, they are an organization that runs the officials, that runs the sport of football for professionals. With that, they have rules committees that meet every year – they go about coming up with new rules they think are going to benefit the sport, the participants, try to make things better for the fans and knowing what should be done in a certain situation.

The problem with MMA is, we have all of these athletic commissions, and each athletic commission is an entity unto itself. The athletic commission can do what it wants, and that’s the problem we have with MMA. It’s not fair to the fighters, it’s not fair to the officials, it’s not fair to the fans.

[Fans] care that they’re seeing the sport that they like and they know exactly what is allowed in that sport and what is not. But when it changes from state to state, that causes a problem for the fans because fans don’t know what can be done. They don’t know what’s right.

It’s a problem for fighters because fighters travel. The low-level fighters are fighting in their state, and they’ll fight multiple times in their state, so they get used to that rule set. But if you’re a top-level fighter and you do one show in California and it’s under the Unified Rules of MMA, and then you go to Missouri and they say, ‘Oh, we have a different set of rules,’ you just affected that fighter in a bad way.