Longtime UFC veteran Diego Sanchez recently defeated Michel Pereira by disqualification, due to an illegal knee strike while Diego was considered down. While I’m happy with the end result, how we got there was kind of controversial, and involved an odd rule that has lead to confusion for quite a while now. So let’s talk about striking a “grounded fighter” and what that even means, and if it’s a rule that makes sense and is worth keeping.
We can’t get too far without highlighting that this was the most Sanchezian fight of all time. Diego was losing for 14 minutes only to get the win by outside forces. It was a crazy outcome and would be a weirdly wonderful yet fitting end to a once-great career. I sincerely hope Diego Sanchez retires, walking away on a high note. The controversy only adds to his legacy.
Odd enough, on the same card, in fact, the previous bout, another fighter, Brok Weaver, also won by an illegal knee to a downed opponent. While this could be one of Diego’s last fights in the UFC, it was Weaver’s first. So whether you’re a longtime vet or a rookie, the rule is affecting a lot of fighters.
Basically, the rule is, in an MMA fight, knees and kicks to the body are allowed at all times, but to the head only while standing. Officially, a grounded fighter is defined as any part of the body, other than a single hand and soles of the feet, touching the fighting area floor. To be grounded, both hands palm/fist down, and/or any other body part must be touching the fighting area floor. A single knee, arm, makes the fighter grounded without having to have any other body part in touch with the fighting area floor. At this time, kicks or knees to the head will not be allowed.
The original point of the rule was to prevent someone from taking a full force kick to the head and causing irreversible brain damage. And while that’s great, and support it, a strike becoming legal or illegal depending upon whether or not the fighter chooses to go down on one knee seems sort of arbitrary.
However, at the end of the day, the ref is the absolute authority. If the ref doesn’t call it illegal at the time, then the fight continues. And if he does step in and stop the action, it can be restarted if the fighter says he can go on. So sometimes it’s up to the ref, other times the ref leaves it up to the fighter, or even a cage-side doctor might be brought in to make the decision. So how to properly enforce the rule seems unclear at best.
See Jon Jones versus Anthony Smith for an example of the ref leaving it up to the fighter. Following a fourth-round illegal knee, Smith kept fighting, only to go on to lose. Had Smith said he couldn’t continue, he would have become the light-heavyweight champ and bested the seemingly unstoppable Jon Jones. Yet fans were outraged that analyst and commentator Ariel Helwani suggested Smith made a mistake by not claiming to be too injured to continue.
Famously, that plan backfired against Chris Weidman in his bout with Gegard Mousasi. While Mousasi was kneeing Chris, Weidman put his two hands down to make himself grounded. Then Gegard pulled him up in order to continue kneeing him. It was a wishy-washy call as to whether it was legal or not.
Obviously Weidman wanted the easy win, so he claimed he was unable to continue, assuming the knee was going to be deemed illegal. But when it was ruled legal, and that Chris wasn’t down, Gegard got the victory via TKO.
A while back there was the phantom knee by Paul Daley against Josh Koscheck. Here, Koscheck turned martial arts into performance art as he pretended he was kneed while down. But the replay revealed he wasn’t even touched. Daley’s limb slightly grazed his hair at most.
In the case of Sanchez and Weaver, they were both obviously losing, and their opponents were about to win by TKO. While being battered on the feet, they fell down, thereby becoming grounded. And the strikes to the head are what led to the strange victories for Diego and Brok. But that is obviously not the way the fight was going, or even the intent of the rule.
The athletic commissions almost always go with whatever the ref did in the cage at the time. Overturning decisions is incredibly rare. There is plenty to be had in improvements to judging, but this reminds us there are also a lot of rules that could stand to be updated or clarified.
Diego was clearly losing and should not have won the fight. And I highly doubt that strike was more damaging than it would have been if he was just slightly more elevated. Protecting fighters is great, arbitrary rules being inconsistently enforced, causing unearned wins, that’s a problem. Plus, there are already rules in place against stomping a grounded opponent. And since that’s actually the basis for the rule, to decrease the amount of force to a fighters head, I feel it alone is sufficient.
It’s asking a bit too much of a fighter, in the heat of the moment, desperate for a win, going in for the kill shot, to notice the slight difference between his opponent being crouched down or on one knee. Especially when even most refs seem uncertain about how to handle the situation as well.
The great Anderson Silva famously threw an upkick (a legal strike) against Yushin Okami. But Okami, sitting in Silva’s guard, was on his knees. Therefore, that knockout was deemed as a DQ loss as well. Had Okami momentarily stood up, then the kick would have been legal, and a win for Anderson. But the position of Yushin’s knees on the mat doesn’t actually affect force or impact of the strike.
So let’s redefine a grounded fighter as being on their back or on their knees turned away from their opponent. Cause that’s when real damage can be inflicted. Outside of that, the head should be fair game, just like when the fighters are standing. I still don’t want anyone to get hurt, but it’s just easier this way.
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