California State Athletic Commission director Andy Foster and UFC CEO Dana White recently came out to support the idea of banning oblique kicks, but one fighter who had his career changed due to those strikes has a different stance.
Thiago Santos did a good job in his UFC title bout against Jon Jones in 2019, losing a split decision despite the fact he had both knees injured. The damage caused to his left knee was caused by lateral knee kicks, and his right one was already hurt going into UFC 239.
Santos had to undergo double knee surgery, and a lengthy recovery period, before eventually fighting again more than a year later, but lost four of his next five before parting ways with the UFC.
“I personally don’t see the need for it,” Santos told MMA Fighting. “I don’t see it as an illegal technique, a technique that’s that difficult to defend from. Then you’re going to say it causes a lot of damage. Man, I think a well-placed kick, like an Edson Barboza kick, a well-placed low kick to the knee can also cause a lot of damage. And the guy has the option to block it or move his leg out of the way. So I think it works the same way. The guy can bend his knee, move his leg out of the way, move to the side. There are a few ways to avoid it. I don’t know, that’s just my opinion. I don’t see it as something that needs to be banned.”
Santos, in fact, would suggest once again banning 12-6 elbows before worrying about oblique kicks. In the end, “Marreta” thinks that more restrictions could “end up hurting the sport” and officials should instead focus on more other topics.
“I think there are other more important things they should be focusing on,” Santos said. “Like strikes that are actually illegal, like shots to the back of the head, eye pokes. To actually change the rules and impose more severe punishments for those things. Those are the things that are really concerning. You look at the case of Alex Pereira himself, you look at the case of the former heavyweight champion [Tom Aspinall], who almost went blind. Those are things that really need attention, and they should be concerned about imposing harsher penalties on people who do that, so that fighters are more concerned about not committing those infractions. That’s what they should be focusing on, not these oblique kicks.”
Married to UFC fighter Yana Santos, and still active in combat sports at age 42, “Marreta” is on the fence about fighting again under regular MMA bouts. He won’t lay his gloves down, but isn’t actively pursuing long deals either.
“I consider myself retired,” Santos said. “I still do it not for the money, but because I still feel capable of doing it. If you look at my last few fights, even with the losses, I’m not a guy who gets hit a lot, and I’m not a guy that people just run through. I’m still competitive. My last fight, I lost and broke my hand in the first round against a guy who was 20 pounds heavier, a striker, and even so, I went three rounds with him and it was a split decision. You don’t really see a huge disparity against me, a 42-year-old who was 20 pounds lighter.”
“I still feel like I can stretch it out a little bit longer, but I don’t have a career plan,” he continued. “I’m at the end of my career. I consider myself retired, but I’m not the kind of guy who’s going to go on the internet and post that I’m retired from MMA. I look at it the same way I did when I left the Armed Forces. When you leave the Armed Forces, you go into the reserve. That’s how I see myself in MMA as well.”
