UFC rules haven’t changed much in the last two decades. Yes, the production of events and overall experience is much better. But the Unified Rules developed in 2000 are the same. And so are all the flaws of the system and bad rules that have been having an impact of the sport.
From the way judges score fights to illegal strikes such as 12 to 6 elbows, there are many UFC rules that need to be changed, and in this article, we are going to discuss them all.
Scoring
The way UFC judges score fights and the criteria they use do not work. There are so many bad and controversial calls that you can no longer trust the system.
Apart from having an impact on the overall entertainment, bad UFC decisions destroy fighters’ careers too. Just a single loss on their records can stop their progress, delay their progress for an additional year, or even result in them leaving the company.
Why UFC scoring system is bad?
The current scoring criteria are bad as give the judges too much space to be subjective and interpret the criteria in their own way.
According to the current system, they choose the winner of the round based on (in this order):
- Effective striking/grappling
- Effective aggressiveness
- Fighting area control
The problem here is that there is no deeper explanation of what each of the three represents and it is up to judges to interpret each one the way they see it meaning that what’s effective aggression for one judge might be the opposite for the other one.
One might favor takedowns and top control while the other one will favor striking or activity from the bottom.
The same stands for the 10-point must system adopted from boxing which has also been around since 2000. The problem is clear – this is a boxing system and MMA needs a new one. Small cosmetic changes like having more 10–8 rounds and educating judges simply don’t work and it has been proven that no matter how you tweak it, the 10-point system needs to go.
12 to 6 elbows
In MMA, there are few limitations when it comes to striking, with the infamous 12 to 6 elbows being the most common. The rules prohibit fighters from hitting the opponent with an elbow that comes from the top (12 o’clock) straight down (6 o’clock). The problem here is — this strike is not more dangerous than any other.
What is the problem with the 12 to 6 elbow rule?
This rule was introduced back when MMA was in its development. Doctors who participated in the creation of the rules were not fighters or martial artists. They literally saw the videos of martial artists breaking bricks using this specific elbow strike and thought it was too dangerous. In fact, they were thinking you could break an opponent’s skull using this move.
But it quickly became clear that this elbow strike is not more dangerous than others. In fact, it is far less powerful than kicks to the head and power punches.
The other problem is the way referees interpret this rule. The strike has to come down exactly from the 12 o’clock position down to 6 to be illegal. So if it goes, let’s say from 11:30 to 6, it’s perfectly fine, which, as you might guess is a nightmare for referees and even Big John McCarthy said this.
To make matters worse, allowing 12 to 6 elbows won’t have a huge impact on the technical aspect. It will primarily impact the ground-and-pound segment, giving fighters yet another way to blast the opponent to the head or body, or even from the bottom why not and everything else will remain very much the same.
Knees to the grounded opponent
Although 12 to 6 elbows wouldn’t make drastic changes, allowing knees to the grounded opponent certainly will. The argument remains the same — knees to the grounded opponent are not worse than other strikes.
In fact, there is a reasonable argument that flying knees landed on the feet are more dangerous. Not to mention other strikes like full-blown shin to the head kick, and various other strikes.
As the rules say, fighters are not allowed to strike an opponent who has one knee or hand touching the ground. This rule is also confusing because it differs from state to state. In one state, grounded is considered a fighter who has both hands touching the ground, while in the other it’s only one hand.
Then, if a fighter lifts their hand 1 millimetre off the ground, this gives their opponent a green light to blast them with a knee to the head. It does not make any sense.
On top of that, knees to the grounded opponent are legal in many other promotions such as ONE FC. If you take this as an example, you will see that this specific strike is not too dangerous or more dangerous than other ones.
But on the other side, it will completely change the dynamic of the matches and strategies.
Eye Pokes
Fighters poke each other in the eyes in just about every event. As a result, more and more matches are stopped by ringside physicians because of injuries and fighters’ vision being compromised to the point it is no longer safe for them to continue.
According to the “Combat Sports Law“, 1 out of every 10 fights includes an eye. This is a much higher rate than in Bellator and other promotions that use different glove designs.
The main reason why eye-pokes happen so often is a mix of:
- UFC glove design that allows fighters to extend fingers
- Inadequate punishment by the referees
- UFC not being interested in fixing this issue
On one side, extending the hand and fingers is an instinctive, natural reaction in certain situations. On the other, you have referees whose job is to warn the fighters about the fingers before and in the middle of the fight, often dozens of times and this can be frustrating.
Not more frustrating, however, than when an eye poke stops the main event, such as the one between Yair Rodriguez and Jeremy Stevens, and hearing people always solely blaming the fighters when it is the UFC that’s simply ignoring to address the issue and possible solution.
Moreover, the solution has been around for a long time. For instance, Pride gloves were more curved which forces the fingers to be curled back when in the neutral position. As a result, the eye-pokes were a rare occurrence.
The same stands for Bellator promotion which uses a similar design to PRIDE. According to statistics, there have been 23 eye-pokes per 223 fights in the UFC, or 1 in 10 fights while Bellator had much less, 2 in 87 bouts.
This combination of curved glove design and better rules can easily make eye-pokes the thing of the past, at least at this rate, and with that, improve the fighters’ safety and quality of entertainment.
Fighter Salaries
The UFC owns 90% of the market while the other promotions are competing for the 10% left. This means that out of every dollar generated in the MMA industry, UFC takes 90 cents.
The company has officially earned over a billion dollars according to financial reports. Their profit was $387 million, which is huge. This is how UFC earned after all the taxes, salaries, costs of production, etc.
The problem is — the UFC pays its fighters around 16–20% of their total revenue. This is much less than in other sports like the NBA or NFL where that number is close to 50%.
Now, some would say “It has always been 15–20% which means that this exponential rise in revenue raised the fighter salaries as well”. However, bear in mind that the UFC has also significantly increased the number of events. Which also means more fighters and more money for their salaries.
How Much UFC Fighters Earn Per Fight?
Overall, UFC contract salaries can be divided into three tiers:
- Lower tier — newcomers who compete on Fight Night prelims and PPV early prelims and earn between $10,000 and $30.000 to show up and a 100% win bonus.
- Medium-tier — well-established fighters who earn anywhere between $50,000 and $150,000.
- Highest-paid – athletes earn from $500.000 to a couple of million. Fighters like Conor who earn dozens of millions are a rare exception.
Let’s quickly go back through history and see how salaries changed over the years. Yes, the salary is based on various factors such as popularity, winning streak, fighting style, and trash-talking, but overall, we can get a basic overview:
- UFC 182 (2015) — Champion Jones: $500K for his win over Cormier; Mid-tier between $50–$150.000; Lower tier: between $10–$20.000 to show up.
- UFC 201 (2016) — Champion Lawler got $500K for the main event loss, Mid-Tier between $24–$75K to show up. Lower-tier between $10–$24.000 to show up.
- UFC 221 (2018) — Champion Dillashaw: $350.000; Champion Johnson: $380.000; Mid-Tier: between $30.000 — $90.000; Low-tier between $10–$20.000
Fighters Missing Weight
UFC fighters are still allowed to cut weight by dehydration and lose up to 30 pounds in a week leading up to a fight to step on the scale within the limits of their weight class. They then regain the weight back in the next 24 hours and enter the cage to fight against the opponent who did the exact same thing.
UFC fighters have been going through the brutal process of weight cutting since the introduction of weight classes. Nothing has changed over the years except for the fact that there is an increase in fighters missing weight. As a result, it often happens that fans get short-notice fights or the matches simply get cancelled.
The solution to this problem is quite simple. First, the UFC can get rid of weight cutting by introducing the weight in few hours before the event. Athletes won’t have enough time to rehydrate and recover, so they will compete close to their natural weight.
This is probably the most logical and practical solution that doesn’t require any complex logistical or financial adaptation.
Or, they can introduce some type of weight-cutting limitations such as preventing them from losing weight by dehydration.
The third solution is to change the UFC rules and add more weight classes. But there are several reasons why this wouldn’t work:
- A: fighters would lose as much weight as they can no matter how many weight classes you add.
- B: adding more division would have a massive impact on the way UFC is operating, but more about that in another video.
Incoherent Penalties and Warnings
The UFC referees do a good job most of the time. However, there is a clear problem with incoherent penalties, point deductions and warnings.
Standing fighters up back to their feet is a good example to begin with. Some referees would stand fighters up after a short time even if they are in a dominant position while on the other, there are the ones who would let a fighter sit on top for the entire round.
The same stands for fighting inside the clinch. Some referees would give more time to a fighter, while the other ones are less patient.
But things get even more confusing if we move to more severe penalties such as eye-pokes and illegal knees to the grounded opponents. These are the most common striking fouls, which the referees also treat differently due to the lack of standards.
First, we rarely see, if ever, a referee taking a point after the first eye poke or illegal strike. It usually takes at least two severe ones and some type of physical damage to the eye to force the referee to take action.
In fact, the majority of instant point deductions are for fence grabbing during the grappling exchanges against the fence. Yes, grabbing the fence to stay on the feet is a bad foul. But so is the eye-poke which even if it doesn’t result in an injury, can compromise your vision.
In their defense, UFC rules are not clear enough about these issues.
There have been examples where a fighter would poke the eye three times and get away with it without a point deduction, and the same stands for striking the grounded opponent.
So the solution here is quite simple; one point deduction per each foul, that’s it.
