- Joined
- May 17, 2005
- Messages
- 24,933
- Reaction score
- 7,190
The single knee restriction came as a result of Semmy Schilt. As far as Buakaw vs Masato 1 is concerned, most of the damage was inflicted at kicking range not in the clinch.
I'm sure Tanikawa didn't like seeing Buakaw's superior clinching and it was factored into the decision of bringing the 1 knee rule into MAX but people do overplay this. It was already in the heavies that year so not surprising for them to make the rules uniform.
I never bought that 'they wanted to make the rules uniform' argument. If Tanikawa wanted to do that, he would have done it simultaneously in both divisions (because he could).
Personally, I think that it's very clear that in the heavies, the catalyst was Schilt, in MAX, it was Buakaw.
Even when he wasn't finishing opponents in the clinch, Buakaw was using it to land multiple knees and almost completely shut down the boxers. He did this in the first Masato fight too.
I don't buy the argument that it was to make the fights more exciting either, because they didn't get more exciting. If anything the smothering tactics and passivity got worse.