After UFC 331, Andy Foster, head of the California Athletic Commission, said that he wants to ban the oblique kick because it’s too dangerous, and UFC CEO Dana White agreed. While I don’t always see eye-to-eye with Foster, I rarely feel like he’s being completely ridiculous, but now is one of those times. So, let’s discuss Foster’s pearl-clutching in this week’s mailbag.
Banning oblique kicks
The Oblique kicks are nasty down right evil but should they be banned? I don’t know but put too many rules in then what is the purpose of fighting if you have to check yourself every time. Next they will ban calf kicks. When does it end!
MMA’s origin is no-holds-barred combat. That’s the start. Since the dawn of society, human beings have wanted to know who the best fighter was, and MMA is just a modern extension of that impulse. Obviously, rules quickly had to be introduced because it’s not Ancient Rome, and fights to the death are not acceptable forms of entertainment. But every rule introduced to MMA over the past 33 years has fallen into one of three categories: entertainment, public perception, and safety.
Fights went from being untimed to having rounds because fights that only end with a finish suck to watch and are impossible to market around. You can’t hold a pay-per-view event if the main event could last for six hours, and if you’ve ever watched some of the very old-school fights like this, you’ll know just how boring they are.
Groin shots were outlawed because they’re highly effective, deeply uninteresting, and completely unacceptable for average audiences. There’s a reason “low blow” is such a widely used term, because people think he’s dirty, and they don’t want that sort of thing in sports. Same for biting, fish-hooking, and hair pulling. These are all maneuvers which undeniably work, but the public won’t tolerate.
Then there are the safety bans. Simply put, shots to the back of the head are illegal because that is how people die. Eye gouging is outlawed because we don’t want people Game of Thronesing it in the cage. There has to be a limit to the brutality allowed, and sticking fingers into another person is certainly over that line.
But oblique kicks don’t fall into any of those categories. There is not some massive outcry from the public that kicking people in the joints is a sign of the collapse of civilization. And sure, the move is dangerous, but that’s not the litmus test. This is fighting; the literal point of it is to be dangerous. The question is, is the move too dangerous to be allowed? And the answer to that is obviously no.
No one is going to die from having their knee flamingoed by an oblique kick; no one will even have horrific, life-altering damage. Yes, it can suck to have your knee blown out, but I think we can all see the difference between that — a stock risk for any athletics — and going blind because your eyeballs got popped. If you’re going to ban the oblique kick because of the danger of long-term damage, then why not take out leg locks? WAY more people have had their knees torn up due to a heel hook than an oblique kick. But no one would even consider banning leg locks, because they shouldn’t.
*Aside: similar to leg locks, I’m actually OK with banning them at lower levels of MMA, like how grappling competitions ban leg locks for blue and white belts. But this is championship-level fighting we’re talking about, not a NAGA white belt group.
I’m old enough to remember when people were calling for calf kicks to get banned because they were too overpowered, and no one could stop them. That was idiotic then, and this is idiotic now. It’s a fist fight; people are going to get hurt. The point is to prevent catastrophic injury, and a blown-out knee simply doesn’t meet that threshold.
Eddie Hearn as an MMA manager
Do you believe that going to Eddie Hearn for management as an MMA fighter is a bad idea if you fight for the UFC?
First, let’s clear something up: to the best of my knowledge, Eddie Hearn does not represent any UFC fighter in terms of fight negotiations. My understanding is that both his deal with Tom Aspinall, and his deal with Ian Machado Garry, cover essentially, all their other money-making opportunities. So it’s marketing, not fight negotiation, which is an important distinction to make.
That being said, if you’re hiring Hearn to represent you, you clearly value his opinion, and he will almost certainly have a voice in any such negotiations, even if he doesn’t sit down at the table with Hunter Campbell and company to hash out the details. And before too long, I expect Hearn to sign other UFC fighters and take a more active role in these things.
Now, with that all out of the way, let me answer the question: it probably doesn’t meaningfully change things, but it will make your life a bit more uncomfortable.
I think I genuinely believe Dana White when he says he doesn’t hold a grudge against Tom Aspinall over the Eddie Hearn deal. But White is absolutely a man who holds grudges, and this latest twist in the Tyson Fury vs. Anthony Joshua saga clearly bothers him. He’s getting cooked in the media by Hearn, and White is not someone who will ever just take a loss and move on. He clearly despises Hearn, and while every fighter should have management that pushes back against their promoter, there is a point where that becomes too much. At the end of the day, these people have to work together, and if things get too bent, then that can’t happen. Especially in the UFC.
And the UFC part of this is really the crux of things, because they hold all the power. Dana White does not need Tom Aspinall or Ian Machado Garry. The UFC is contractually obligated to offer fights, but they can offer whatever kind of fights they want, and mostly in the manner they want. Aspinall or Garry can only say yes or no. And if they say no, the contract extends. Fighters in the UFC have almost no leverage whatsoever, and White and company established decades ago that they would rather lose a small amount of money than give up an ounce of control.
This is why so many fighters kowtow to the UFC; it’s easier to take what’s given and try and get in the good graces of management than it is to start a revolution. The nail that sticks out gets hammered, after all. And if there’s one thing MMA fighters have proven over the years, it’s that they have no intention of being that nail.
Ultimately, unless Hearn signs 100 UFC fighters, he has no real power to do anything other than needle White, and White is more focused on beating Eddie than he is on taking revenge against Eddie’s fighters. But for the next few years, every Eddie Hearn UFC fighter is going to get asked about this unfolding drama, and that’s gonna be annoying.
Thanks for reading, and thank you to everyone who sent in questions! Do you have any burning questions about things at least somewhat related to combat sports? Then you’re in luck, because every week I put a prompt into The Feed for your questions. Fire them there, and I’ll answer the best ones in the Mailbag and try to get to the rest in the responses.
