Mixed martial arts has taken lots of forms over the years, from the Gracie challenge matches in Brazil to the creation of the UFC in the United States and the rise of PRIDE in Japan. MMA fights have taken place with a myriad of time restraints (or lack thereof), in rings, in cages, and with various permutations of prohibited moves.
What appears in our modern version of MMA isn’t always the result of careful experimentation and analysis. The modern game lacks knees and kicks to the head of a grounded opponent because of the McCain-led backlash against the sport in the United States in the 1990s. Three judges evaluate contests at cage side because that’s what boxing did. The story goes that 12-6 elbows are banned because some athletic commission member saw a karate fighter break a stack or bricks with the technique.
It’s now been over 20 years since the foundation of the UFC, including 15 years in the “modern era” (roughly since the first adoption of the Unified Rules). With two decades and thousands upon thousands of fights worth of empirical evidence, what would the sport look like if we decided to rebuild it from scratch today?
Things We Keep
The Cage – The only true “perfect” structure for a prize fight is a mat that stretches to infinity in all directions. But since that is both impractical and impossible, a cage will have to do. The cage has many limitations: it can be grabbed, an opponent can be driven into it, it can be used as an aid (without the hands) to return to one’s feet. A cage, however, has the important distinction of not allowing the combatants to fall outside of the fighting area. Even the best rings – those with more than three ropes attached to one another and with some sort of barrier between the bottom-most rope and canvas – have the issue of fighters becoming entangled.
Judging By Round – In a perfect world, we would judge a fight as a whole unit. But we do not live in a perfect world because human beings are imperfect. Specifically, judges tend to give more weight to events that happen towards the end of a round (or fight), and the first minute of a fight should have the same weight as the fifteenth or twenty-fifth. Judging by round doesn’t eliminate the problem, but it does mitigate it to some extent.
Five-minute rounds – I can offer no reason that definitely states that five-minute rounds are optimal. They may not be. But five minutes seems to be long enough time for grapplers to work submission while being short enough for judges to evaluate and fighters to avoid the diminishing returns of exertion without break.
Things We Modify
More five-round fights – I’ve made this case numerous times in the past, and I’ll summarize the argument here. Five-round fights mitigate bad judging and (good or bad) point deductions. Five-round fights offer the most excitement and drama to the viewer. Championship fights consist of five rounds, and we should expand the definition of “championship-level” fights to include all those featuring fighters within reasonable distance of a title shot.
More judges per fight – This may be towing the line of practicality given the budgets of many athletic commissions, but each marginal judge reduces the overall effect of one individual judge. Here’s an extreme example: Let’s say fights that go to a decision are only awarded to a fighter who receives a unanimous vote, and that each judge has a 50/50 chance of awarding the fight to either fighter. If we have one judge, the fight will be awarded to either Fighter A or Fighter by 50% of the time each. But with two judges, Fighter A wins 25% of the time, Fighter B wins 25% of the time, and the fight is a draw the other 50% of the time. I’m not sure what the optimal number is, but I’d guess it’s between five and nine.
Judging criteria – Simplify the judging criteria to “effective offense.” Effective defense, aggression, and Octagon/cage/ring control are all useless without accompanying offense. Grappling and takedowns should be viewed as a means to effective striking and/or submissions and only considered in scoring if other elements of offense are equal. In addition, judges should score 10-10s and 10-8s more often. Specifically, rounds should be scored 10-10 when a judge cannot reasonably choose between either fighter (in contrast to many athletic commission’s instructions to find a winner). Without diving into minutiae, judges should be instructed to loosen their definition of a “dominant” round.
Half-point deductions – In order to encourage referees to penalize more fouls, allow the implementation of a half-point penalty for first offenses of fouls such as grabbing the fence and eye pokes. One half-point penalty would effect only cards that are otherwise scored as draws, but would also give referees more authority in the cage. Full points could still be deducted for intentional fouls or consequent fouls.
Things We Add
Knees To The Head On The Ground – Knees to the head of a grounded opponent are probably the holy grail of prohibited techniques. Allowing knees on the ground offers the largest possible change inside the cage without dramatically changing the integrity of the sport. It offers the striker an effective defense against the grappler, and it offers the grappler additional means with which to capitalize on the floor. (Note: In a perfect world, kicks and stomps are included here, as well.)
12-6 Elbows – See introduction. Their prohibition is silly.
Things We Remove
Standups And Breaks – Stopping fights on the ground and restarting on the feet incentivizes fighters on the bottom to tie up the fighter on top to stifle offense. By eliminating the referee restart, bottom fighters will have no choice but to open up if they want any chance of regaining a vertical base. This makes for a more interesting, dynamic ground game. The same concepts applies for fights in the clinch along the fence.
Judges At Cageside? – New Jersey is experimenting with putting judges in isolated soundproof rooms. The idea has plenty of merit, as numerous studies have shown the effect of crowd noise on referees in other sports. This also removes judges from often non-optimal viewing angles of the action. It comes at the cost, however, of hearing the action in the cage. So, the jury is still out, but I like this idea in theory.
