Rulesets within various sports exist for various reasons and serve a multitude of purposes. In mixed martial arts however; the primary purpose for the advent of rules is simply for the safety of the participants. Some rules are obvious such as no eye gouging, no biting, etc., while some rules are specific to particular events such as no elbows or no soccer kicks however; the spirit behind each and every rule is the same: to ensure the safest environment possible for an athletic competition.
In the list below we will take a look at five times the rules of competition were blatantly broken with the sole intent to hurt an opponent.
5) Paul Daley kicked out of UFC for cheap shot
Hitting your opponent after the bell signifies the end of a round or a fight is an obvious violation of the rules however; at UFC 113 that is exactly what Paul Daley did to Josh Koscheck after Koscheck proceeded to dominate Daley for the entire fight. What is interesting about this incident is that the event took place on May 8, 2010 and the repercussion for this foul was Paul Daley’s removal from the UFC…he still, 6 years later, has not been allowed back!
4) Wes Sims holds fence and tries to stomp a hole in Frank Mir’s face
In the UFC, fighter safety is of the utmost importance and with that in mind, the UFC made it a rule very early on that one is not allowed to stomp a grounded opponent’s head. Apparently, Wes Sims did not get the memo during his fight at UFC 43: Meltdown with Frank Mir. He in fact had a meltdown and proceeded to grab the fence for leverage, another rule violation, and proceed to stomp on the head and neck of Frank Mir.
3) Mike ‘the cannibal’ Kyle takes a bite out of Wes Sims
Mike Kyle made his UFC debut against Wes Sims at UFC 47: It’s on and although he won the bout via knockout at 4 minutes and 59 seconds of the first round it wasn’t without controversy. In what some might call a bit of poetic justice for Wes Sims’ actions in a previous bout (see the previous slide) it appears that Mike Kyle took a bite out of Wes Sims! Although never penalized for the foul it is clearly evident that it occurred.
2) Mike Kyle tries to soccer kick Brian Olsen’s head into the stands
Once again we have an incident involving the notoriously dirty fighter Michael Kyle (see previous slide). This time we take a look at his WEC bout in May of 2006 against Brian Olsen. As with the UFC, the WEC has always had a long standing rule that it is illegal to kick a grounded opponent to the head. Not only did Kyle proceed to try and boot Olsen’s dome into the third row but he did after the bell!
1) Gilbert Yvel takes out the ref
The number one fighter on our list is a man that makes Mike Kyle look like Mother Theresa. Not only does Yvel like to kick people in the groin, poke them in the eye, and bite them, he also has a propensity to turn his aggression on to the referee. As a matter of the fact, he has not one but two disqualifications under his belt for knocking out or choking out the referee! Not exactly a take home to mom type of fellow!
