Association of Boxing Commissions wants you!

by Zak Woods on Aug 21, 2008 1:41 PM EDT Comment 0 comments

The last attempt the ABC made into updating the unified rules of MMA didn't go over to well. Most people were pissed about new weight classes and the secretive nature of the decision making. Well here comes round two. Bloodyelbow.com showed an email they received from the ABC outlining the desire for public input from judges, promoters, trainers, fighters, media members, and others. As well as the creation of an ABC committee with two sub-committees, one of fighters and one of industry members (that one has John McCarthy). If you want to check out the full email click the link.

At least the ABC learned from their previous attempt to muddle things up. I do think this is a good move though. Getting everyone in the MMA community (though it is quickly looking like that will be just the UFC) onto the same page is vital. Not just fighters and organizations but judges, referees and fans as well.

Some things I would like to see:

1.) A clearly defined back of the head rule aka the occipital lobe

2.) Herb Dean is banned from being an official

3.) A more transparent Scoring system aka a scoring handbook

4.) Clearer scoring methods i.e. degree of difficulty in a submission attempt gets more points

5.) In the long run a whole new scoring system to replace the boxing 10-9 format

6.) International scoring to allow for eventual Olympic acceptance, think what boxing has

7.) Instruct officials to break fighters more often, too much laying and praying. Yes this is a tactic but laying on someone for fifty seconds and only throwing one elbow is not taking advantage of a position. You need to reward a successful guard/defense.

8.) Cecil Peoples is banned from judging

9.) Doctors, do not let this ever happen again

10.) Official Meta-Rankings endorsed by the ABC

11.) Degree of damage being dealt and received incorporated into scoring (think of round 1 in Rampage vs. Griffin, should of gone to Rampage)

12.) Near successful attempts at submissions being rewarded in scoring system (i.e. Tito Ortiz's triangle against Machida gives Tito the round)

13.) Clearly define what is a 10-8 round, a lot of these have been showing up legit or not since Kalib Starnes ran away for an entire fight

14.) No head kicks to downed opponent but kicks to body still allowed.

15.) ABC forms a permanent MMA committee

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