So you don't think there is any confusion resulting from the current rules and what the fighters are being told?
Weidman thought he would get the DQ win so played up the knee to the head. When told the opposite he was suddenly fine to continue fighting.
he tried to game the system with the hand down defence and got caught by the new rules.
Stephens came out and said that the ref told him earlier that knee was legal to throw and that is why he threw it. He thought it was a legal knee even if it connected fully.
He was wrong and no one would argue a DQ loss if Emmet had been knocked out by the knee.
Alvarez vs Poirer was more than likely a mistake and he thought he could catch him with a sneaky knee on the way to getting up.
In my opinion that shows quite a bit of confusion as to where the fighters stand. I feel the rules need to be cleared up and made uniform across all events.
That knee by Stephens made some change to the outcome of the fight and was illegal. He stated in an interview he threw it intentionally believing it was fine.
It made contact and within the next couple seconds Emmet went from attempting to get to his feet, to being pushed onto his back and finished.
It was the refs fault for not catching it, but lets take this and make some changes to clarify the rules or put something like instant replay in place for the future.
By the rules that fight should be atleast a No contest if not DQ loss for Stephens. It is the fighters responsibility to know and fight within the rules and the ref needs to enforce them.
I agree with a lot of what you said but still stand by that belief that those are different situations and the specific circumstances matter otherwise we wouldn't need to discuss them.
The sport could be better organization and should have the same rules everywhere but with state sanctioning bodies that is not the current reality, unfortunately.
But people acting confused over very simple rules is annoying. Knees down has always been down regardless of rule change or state sanctioning body.
The fact that a fighter could think an opponent on his knees isn't considered a downed opponent because his hands aren't down is embarrassing. On top of that the elbows where to the back of the head or at the very least close enough that a pro fighter should be more cautious/aware.
Conclusion: Stephens is either dumb or didn't care about breaking rules or both.
Weidman tried to game the rules and it backfired. Sucks for him but that's what he gets for faking it. That fight brought to light the fact that you can lift a guy up to make him not grounded anymore, good to know and maybe they should have had more of a public discussion before hand but that is rarely how things work.
Conclusion: be honest.
Alvarez could not see that Poitier was down, but it is his responsibility ultimately to throw legal strikes. If a fighter isn't sure then they shouldn't throw the strike. It is pretty simple and based on the fact that 99% of fighters are able to obey the rules and stop their combos at the bell and release submissions and the few that break the rules often wind up being multiple offenders it seems like the problems isn't understanding rules so much as following them.
Conclusion: Eddie should know better, bad decision to throw the strike by Alvarez who was losing that fight and may have been reckless. Poirier should not have been penalized for his opponent cheating and he got screwed out of a win bonus.
I would WAY RATHER have all knees and soccer kicks be legal. It makes several positions much more interesting and if a guy can't defend those techniques he doesn't deserve to win. It is a FIGHT after all.