Hands Up! Grounded Opponent Rule Change In The Works

No more questions about fingers, palms, or load-bearing weight. CSAC head Andy Foster wants hands out of the grounded fighter calculation all together.

The California State Athletic Commission has announced plans to get rid of some of the stupidest rules in mixed martial arts.

That’s according to CSAC head Andy Foster, who seems like one of the last forward-thinking commission heads in the United States. Over the years, Foster has done things like implemented a pension fund for MMA fighters. He barred California judges from working events on opposite sides of the country over one weekend after some terrible scores were turned in. He also set up rules in 2019 to try and stop extreme weight cutting.

If a fighter weighs more than 15% above the contracted weight on fight day, their bout will be canceled. If they’re close to the limit, CSAC bans them from their current weight class. Good, solid rule changes. But maybe a bit too much complication for the UFC?

Since 2019, the UFC has only returned to California twice. That’s right: UFC 298 on February 17th will be just their third event in the Golden State in the last five years. Maybe that’s why they were willing to sanction Dana White Power Slap in the state.

The latest positive change Foster hopes to implement in combat sports will be put forward at the next Association of Boxing Commissions (ABC) meeting. That means the rules will change in every state using the Unified Rules, rather than just in California. In an interview with The MMA Hour, Foster said it was time to change the grounded opponent rules so fighters stopped gaming the system by putting a hand on the canvas.

“We’re going to get rid of the hand. That’s my proposal. We’re going to get rid of it,” he told Ariel Helwani. “If you want to be down, you need to put something else down. Knee, back, anything. Anything other than — you can’t be standing up, putting your hand on the ground. It’s caused too much confusion.”

“A rule that we put in for safety has in fact created an unsafe environment, and it’s created an untenable environment for referees to regulate this. They all view it differently.”

The safety issue comes from fighters intentionally putting themselves in extremely dangerous situations thinking they’ll be protected from knees and kicks. Look at Arnold Allen vs. Movsar Evloev from UFC 297: Evloev ate multiple knees to the face because he was busy trying to keep his hand on the canvas instead of defending himself. Valentina Shevchenko did the same thing against Alexa Grasso at Noche UFC.

Another rule that needs to go, according to Foster? The infamous 12-6 downward elbow.

“It’s just silly,” he said. “That rule is just, what about 11-5, if we’re going to use the clock? Or 1-7? Those aren’t illegal. 3-9 is an awful hard strike from side control, but that’s not banned. It doesn’t make any sense, is the point I’m trying to make.”

“Either you ban elbows or you allow them. This is the only one that’s not, and it’s poorly enforced. Hardly ever is it enforced, and when it is enforced, it’s enforced wrong. And you certainly shouldn’t have people being DQ’d over this. You go back and you have people arguing, ‘Well, it wasn’t straight down.’ I’ve had all this. This rule is untenable as well. Terrible thing we’ve put our referees in. We should not have rules on the books that are clearly unenforceable.”

Somewhere out there, Jon Jones is nodding in agreement.