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Marc Raimondi with an excellent article on ESPN.
Jessica Andrade is the new UFC women's strawweight champion. She earned that title with a violent, second-round slam knockout of Rose Namajunas at UFC 237 on Saturday night in Brazil.
The technique, Andrade driving Namajunas down to the mat head and neck first, was a legal one. It was well within the Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts. Regulators agree on that fact.
The big question coming out of this weekend, though, is not if such a vicious slam is legal -- it's whether or not it should be.
According to the Unified Rules of MMA: "Any throw with an arc to its motion is to be considered a legal throw." In addition, if a submission is being attempted by one fighter, his or her opponent is able to pick that fighter up and "bring that opponent down in any fashion they desire because they are not in control of their opponent's body." Andrade's slam met both criteria; it had an arc and Namajunas was attempting a kimura submission at the time. It was legal.
An illegal slam is a very specific violation and extremely rare in MMA. It is defined in the rules as a "pile driver," where a fighter controls the opponent's body, "placing their feet up in the air with their head straight down and then forcibly drives the opponent's head into the canvas or flooring material."
Namajunas was knocked out by the legal slam and Andrade was ruled the winner via TKO by referee Marc Goddard. The angle in which Namajunas' head hit the mat was difficult to watch, but Namajunas did not go to the hospital afterward, her agent, Brian Butler, told ESPN's Ariel Helwani.
Brazilian MMA Athletic Commission (CABMMA) executive director Cristiano Sampaio told ESPN that he has already requested that the topic of slams be brought up this month on the Association of Boxing Commissions and Combative Sports (ABC) rules and regulations committee conference call. Sampaio, whose agency regulated UFC 237, is a member of that committee.
"Whatever is decided, I am sure fighters' safety will always be the No. 1 priority," Sampaio wrote in an email statement. "And I have also requested an input from CABMMA's medical committee. Hopefully by July, in the ABC's annual conference, we can come to conclusions whether or not this rule should be improved."
Dr. John Neidecker, the vice president of the Association of Ringside Physicians (ARP), told ESPN that while the kind of slam Andrade used was dangerous, a straight up-and-down spike of the head into the mat is likely to be what would put fighters "more at risk" for short- and long-term damage -- even paralysis.
"The most dangerous thing as far as a neck is concerned is that head-on collision, that axial pressure going straight down the cervical spine," Neidecker, a sports medicine and orthopedics specialist, said. "So if you're doing a slam that is going straight up and down, you're definitely putting somebody more at risk for that type of impact.
"When you're having that arc [on a slam], you're really taking away that component of axial pressure down the neck. You may get more hyper extension or hyper side-bending to the neck, and that can cause injury, but that's not going to cause the catastrophic injuries you see with paralysis like an axial spine blow does. There's a potential of injury to the neck with any type of slam, but there's the potential for injury with pretty much everything in MMA. That's the name of the game."
The slam rule is written so specifically, because of the desire to keep "fighting as limitless as possible in the cage," within reason when it comes to health and safety, according to California State Athletic Commission (CSAC) executive officer Andy Foster, who also chairs the ABC's medical committee.
More here (including comments on the slam rule from John McCarthy, CSAC officer Andy Foster and NJSACB councel Nick Lembo):
Well worth a read.
http://www.espn.com/mma/story/_/id/26735420/should-andrade-slam-namajunas-banned-mma
Jessica Andrade is the new UFC women's strawweight champion. She earned that title with a violent, second-round slam knockout of Rose Namajunas at UFC 237 on Saturday night in Brazil.
The technique, Andrade driving Namajunas down to the mat head and neck first, was a legal one. It was well within the Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts. Regulators agree on that fact.
The big question coming out of this weekend, though, is not if such a vicious slam is legal -- it's whether or not it should be.
According to the Unified Rules of MMA: "Any throw with an arc to its motion is to be considered a legal throw." In addition, if a submission is being attempted by one fighter, his or her opponent is able to pick that fighter up and "bring that opponent down in any fashion they desire because they are not in control of their opponent's body." Andrade's slam met both criteria; it had an arc and Namajunas was attempting a kimura submission at the time. It was legal.
An illegal slam is a very specific violation and extremely rare in MMA. It is defined in the rules as a "pile driver," where a fighter controls the opponent's body, "placing their feet up in the air with their head straight down and then forcibly drives the opponent's head into the canvas or flooring material."
Namajunas was knocked out by the legal slam and Andrade was ruled the winner via TKO by referee Marc Goddard. The angle in which Namajunas' head hit the mat was difficult to watch, but Namajunas did not go to the hospital afterward, her agent, Brian Butler, told ESPN's Ariel Helwani.
Brazilian MMA Athletic Commission (CABMMA) executive director Cristiano Sampaio told ESPN that he has already requested that the topic of slams be brought up this month on the Association of Boxing Commissions and Combative Sports (ABC) rules and regulations committee conference call. Sampaio, whose agency regulated UFC 237, is a member of that committee.
"Whatever is decided, I am sure fighters' safety will always be the No. 1 priority," Sampaio wrote in an email statement. "And I have also requested an input from CABMMA's medical committee. Hopefully by July, in the ABC's annual conference, we can come to conclusions whether or not this rule should be improved."
Dr. John Neidecker, the vice president of the Association of Ringside Physicians (ARP), told ESPN that while the kind of slam Andrade used was dangerous, a straight up-and-down spike of the head into the mat is likely to be what would put fighters "more at risk" for short- and long-term damage -- even paralysis.
"The most dangerous thing as far as a neck is concerned is that head-on collision, that axial pressure going straight down the cervical spine," Neidecker, a sports medicine and orthopedics specialist, said. "So if you're doing a slam that is going straight up and down, you're definitely putting somebody more at risk for that type of impact.
"When you're having that arc [on a slam], you're really taking away that component of axial pressure down the neck. You may get more hyper extension or hyper side-bending to the neck, and that can cause injury, but that's not going to cause the catastrophic injuries you see with paralysis like an axial spine blow does. There's a potential of injury to the neck with any type of slam, but there's the potential for injury with pretty much everything in MMA. That's the name of the game."
The slam rule is written so specifically, because of the desire to keep "fighting as limitless as possible in the cage," within reason when it comes to health and safety, according to California State Athletic Commission (CSAC) executive officer Andy Foster, who also chairs the ABC's medical committee.
More here (including comments on the slam rule from John McCarthy, CSAC officer Andy Foster and NJSACB councel Nick Lembo):
Well worth a read.
http://www.espn.com/mma/story/_/id/26735420/should-andrade-slam-namajunas-banned-mma
