This week at the Association of Boxing Commissions 37th Annual Conference changes were made to MMA’s unified rules. Specifically the judging criteria were overhauled to have the language more accurately reflect current practices.
The main highlight can be summarized in one word – damage. The old version of the rules shied away from that word despite making the concept of damage important. The new version emphasizes damage in several ways resulting in clearer and easier to understand language for fighters, officials and the public at large.
In addition to emphasizing that damage is key for determining a round winner the rules also note that:
- Damage is now essential for a judge to score a 10-8 round with Dominance and Duration together not being enough.
- When judges can’t determine a winner on Damage and move to Aggressiveness or Fighting Area Control they no longer do so in a tiered way but instead based on “whichever impacted the round in a more significant manner“
The full new rules read as follows:
Combat Sports Law 