Update August 2, 2022 – As of this morning the letter has grown to over 215 names. At the bottom of the article is the latest list of all fighters backing this initiative who signed the open letter to the Association of Boxing Commissions and Combative Sports asking for fighters to have a seat at … More Over 200 Fighters Petition ABC For A Seat At The Table
Correlation Does Not Equal Causation. Sometimes things are related. But it does not mean one is caused by the other. Science moves slowly and cautiously and now a study has been published taking the important step saying repetitive head impacts in fact “cause” CTE. A research paper, published in Frontiers of Neurology titled Applying the … More Study Finds “Conclusive Evidence” Repetitive Head Impacts Cause CTE
Perhaps no rule is more dis-unified under the unified rules than the grounded fighter rule. Despite the near unanimous adoption of a change to this rule at the ABC Annual Conference in 2016 jurisdictions have been very scattered in formally adopting the rule to their own state laws / regulations. To fix this the ABC … More ABC Proposes New “Grounded Fighter” Rule in MMA
How do you score an MMA bout? The Association of Boxing Commissions and Combative Sports rules subcommittee has created a visual aid called the MMA “scoring ladder” to help make it easier to understand. This is not a change to the unified rules. It does not add or alter any of the current criteria. It … More ABC Introduces MMA “Scoring Ladder”
Update July 27, 2022 – Today both the below rules were adopted and now form part of the ABC’s unified rules. There were some minor adjustments to the neoprene sleeve rule confirming a competitor cannot grab their own sleeve advantageously. I will further update this article once I receive a copy of the final text … More ABC Voting on MMA “Eye Poke Foul” Change And More
Open scoring has now been successfully used in at least two US jurisdictions for MMA. Kansas and Colorado. Last night Colorado had their first ever run with the scoring system for an Invicta FC card. Many critics of open scoring say fighters knowing the score will lead the winning fighter to avoid action and coast … More Colorado Successfully Uses Open Scoring in MMA
Adding to this site’s data base of combat sports safety studies, a recent study was published in the Journal of Physical Fitness and Sports Medicine in Japan reviewing concussions in MMA fighters and their connection to past knockouts. In the study, titled Incidence of concussions in male mixed martial arts competition in relation to number of … More Study – Concussed MMA Fighters Significantly More Likely To Be Subsequently Concussed
Combat Sports Law 