Herb Dean discusses the 12-6 elbow
Herb Dean: “If someone gained an advantage or harmed a person during an illegal technique, what we’re supposed to do is try to balance that out, we can take a point or take a position.”
Massively respected referee Herb Dean appeared recently on Luke Thomas’s The MMA Hour, and discussed Marc Goddard’s stand up from mount of Eddie Alvarez vs. Dustin Poirier in the UFC on FOX 30 main event. Goddard later explained that Alvarez also held the fence, and inserted his finger into Poirier’s ear, and threw an illegal 12-6 elbow, making the stand up more than reasonable.
So as a referee, we have some choices, said Dean, as transcribed by Marc Raimondi for MMA Fighting. We can give warnings. We can stop the action, give a firm warning. We can stop the action and take away an advantageous position. Or we can also take away points. … Of course, if someone gained an advantage or harmed a person during an illegal technique, what we’re supposed to do is try to balance that out, we can take a point or take a position. We try to balance that out by those things.
What comes into play, there is some latitude on how the referee is gonna enforce the rule. I know we try to lock these things down with a lot of rules and procedures and mechanics, so that we can take as much of that latitude out. But I don’t agree with doing that, because each fight is its own situation and we’re gonna have to trust the referee’s discretion at some times.
The 12-6 prohibition is itself highly controversial. Dean said that given the potential for the point of the elbow to strike downward into an eye, he can see the ban in some circumstances.
I think it’s a rule that we have to look at, said Dean. I think it’s a rule that everybody in the sport, all the regulators [have to] look at that rule. It’s one that definitely deserves some conversation.
For the situation where the fight happened, I don’t think the rule really makes a lot of sense to use it there. I don’t think that elbow should be any different than any other elbow.
