10 Stupid & Poorly Enforced Rules That Cost MMA Fighters Big Time

The unified rules of MMA are still fairly new compared to other sports, having been constructed in November 2000. This doesn’t mean that fighters can do whatever they want whilst they are in the cage, but it does mean that there are rare events that we haven’t seen yet. When something extremely unusual happens, there often hasn’t been a rule made since nobody thought about it before. When compared to American football or basketball, these sports have been around for hundreds of years, so this is rarely a novel concept or incident.

As a result of this, you may see strange decisions in a fight until a rule is thought about properly and changed to fit modern day MMA. Not only this but poor officiating can also skew fights in the wrong direction. Even when all of the rules are watertight, it only takes a poor referee for all of this good work to be undone.

For the most part though, strange and poorly thought out rules in MMA are created by people who don’t know about the sport such as large governing bodies. State athletic commissions would rather create their own nuanced rules than stick to an organization or promotion that has had thousands of hours of fight experience. A prime example of this is New York becoming the final state to legalize MMA due to corruption and bureaucracy.

Unfortunately, these decisions also have consequences that are passed on to fighters. As you will see, some people get away with a slap on the wrist, but others are hit with mafia level fines and suspensions which they didn’t deserve or have losses on their record through no fault of their own.

The Worst Rule Enforcements That Cost Fighters Money, Wins & Losses

Leaving The Cage Before A Decision

At UFC 205 in 2016, Yoel Romero performed a stunning knockout on Chris Weidman before leaping out of the cage in celebration. If you have watched any kind of MMA promotion before, you have likely seen this kind of celebration since it is fairly common. The mistake Yoel Romero made was doing this in the state of New York and was therefore handed a 2-month suspension. This was repeated by Charles Oliveira who received the same ban, followed by Pedro Munhoz, who received a $2500 fine.

This pretty much sums up just how petty the state of New York is. For the most part, fighters such as Yoel Romero fight every 6 months at the absolute most, so a 2-month suspension isn’t fooling anyone.

Somersault From The Top Of The Octagon

If you thought a 2-month ban for jumping the fence after a win was bad, Justin Gaethje was given an indefinite ban by the state of Colorado for performing a backflip from the top of the cage. In fairness, Gaethje had already been given prior warning not to do the backflip by the state athletic commission, but when he won the fight by TKO, he did it anyway.

As Justin Gaethje was a well known and popular fighter, this indefinite ban was lifted a day later, but if he had been a fighter with a worse record and no reputation, who knows how long this ban would have stood for?

Using An Inhaler In The Cage

One of the strangest ever rules which will likely not be seen again was when Greg Hardy used a breathing inhaler between the 2nd and 3rd round of his fight against Ben Sosoli.

As Hardy suffers from asthma, he decided to take a shot of his inhaler after asking a state athletic commission representative between rounds. It should be noted that an inhaler is not an illegal drug and can be used by and fighter (unless it is during a fight).

For some reason, the state athletic commission of Massachusetts overturned this win to a no contest, since additional items in the cage are not allowed to be used without prior consent. This is somewhat of a strange ruling and raises questions about what can and can’t be used when a round is over.

Missing The Weigh-Ins

Missing weight is never a good thing for an MMA fighter. This typically means you’re going to lose at least 20-30% of your purse and your opponent has the right to decline to fight.

Perhaps the most extreme example of this was when Thiago Alves was given a 3 month ban by the state of New York for missing weight.

Kelvin Gastelum was on the same fight card and decided to skip weigh-ins altogether since he knew he could not make weight. New York suspended him 6 months, but were happy to accept a $2000 payment in order to overturn this.

Aggressive Celebration

When Corey Anderson knocked out Johnny Walker at UFC 244, it goes without saying that he was very excited.

Once again, the NY state athletic commission overstepped its boundaries once again by deeming the celebration “disorderly conduct”. Granted, the celebration was somewhat aggressive, but it couldn’t really be considered distasteful or over the top compared to what we have seen before. However, as New York loves to fine athletes, Anderson was slapped with an excessive $10k fine, which is no doubt a lot of money for a fighter who is not a championship contender.

12-6 Elbows

Without a doubt, the most well known rule that was correctly applied by one of the worst referees of all time (Steve Mazzagatti), were the 12-6 elbows which gave Jon Jones the only loss of his career.

There is certainly an argument that the fight could have been stopped already since Matt Hamill was out of it by the time the bell had rung and was not putting up much of a defense.

Either way, Mazzagatti actually came to the correct conclusion for one of the first times in his career and disqualified Jones. However, not allowing 12-6 elbows is one of the most absurd rules in mixed martial arts and has no logical reasoning behind it. John McCarthy has explained how this rule came about in the first place, which was at the unified rules meeting in which a doctor was not happy this movement had been used to break wooden boards in karate demonstrations.

Strikes To A Downed Opponent

A prime example of what happens under rare circumstances. The rules may be written down, but nobody knows them since they haven’t encountered the situation before and therefore haven’t had to apply any logical thought or judgment.

In a fight between Tim Means & Alex Oliveira at UFC 207, Means kneed Oliveira in the head whilst he had a knee on the canvas. The fight was stopped, but the commentators insisted that Oliveira did not have his hand on the floor so the strikes should be legal. However, when reviewing the rules, intentional knees against a fighter with one knee on the floor is still a disqualification, regardless of hand positioning.

However, as the referee was the infamous Dan Miragliotta he deemed the fight to be a no contest, with even Tim Means admitting the knees were intentional.

Replay Misuse

Like many other sports, MMA has began to adopt the use of video replays. This has been adopted in Nevada where the referee is allowed to stop the fight and view footage back in slow motion. The idea of this is to stop fighters from taking advantage of techniques such as eye pokes.

Unfortunately, as with all technology, there are hidden flaws when you add in the aspect of human perception. During the Ed Herman vs Mike Rodriguez fight, Rodriguez landed a big knee which knocked Herman to the floor, who looked all but finished until the referee Chris Tognoni called a timeout.

For some strange reason, the referee was then arrogant enough to decide that he didn’t need to see a replay since he already knew what happened (despite him being wrong). If this wasn’t bad enough, Herman then submitted Rodriguez in the third round.

Despite this very obvious malpractice, Herman was denied a hearing by the state of Nevada with Dana White commenting “It’s one of the most disgusting, bad calls that I’ve ever seen in my life”.

Foot Stuck In The Cage

In 2016 Jake Ellenberger faced off against Jorge Masvidal in the finale of TUF. During the match, Ellenberger somehow slipped sideways and got his foot caught under the cage, but on top of the mat. Obviously, this is a freak accident and there is no way Ellenberger can defend himself since he has one limb stuck underneath the cage.

Herb Dean stopped the fight and allowed Ellenberger to escape the strange position, which would seem like a fair resolution. However, Dean was told that the fight was over and he would not be allowed to restart the contest despite intending to do so.

Masvidal was awarded a TKO victory. Ellenberger appealed this decision, but it was denied, and was given a loss for getting his foot stuck underneath the cage.

Low Blows In Illinois

During a PFL fight, Robert Watley squared off against Thiago Tavares and kicked him square in the groin. This is not unusual as accidental low blows are fairly common in MMA and you will generally see at least one if you are to watch a full card of fights. Fighters are given up to 5 minutes to recover, which is often not needed and then the fight continues as normal.

It was a little different this time since Tavares looked to be genuinely suffering from the strike and could not continue to fight. However, Illinois has slightly different rules in which all groin strikes are considered to be accidental. As Tavares could not continue due to this “accidental” strike, Watley was awarded a TKO victory, despite thinking he had already lost the fight due to disqualification.