John McCarthy Explains MMA’s Updated “Unified Rules”

In August 2016 members of the Association of Boxing Commissions overwhelmingly voted in support to amend MMA’s so called ‘unified rules’. The ABC aimed for a timeline for the new rules to come into force on January 1, 2017.

While the consensus for change was near unanimous the vote itself was not binding on any individual member and the process to update the Rules varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. In other words, on January 1, 2017 many commissions will have adopted the new rules but they will not be ‘unified’ across the board.

California is one of the first jurisdictions to update their rules in compliance with the ABC vote. In this video MMA Rules pioneer John McCarthy explains exactly what these changes entail.