- Joined
- Apr 23, 2011
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Yeah, kicks and knees to the body of a grounded opponent are still legal. The problem is the head. Some states consider fingertips on mat grounded, others don’t.
The thing with the backflip is that it’s extremely low percentage, and it’s hard to know the intent. He could be going for a 360 atomic butt drop Mark Hunt style guard pass, or doing it purely for show, so it’s probably hard for the ref to stop if it doesn’t land and nothing illegal happens. If he does land with both feet on the opponent and stomps him, then the ref should stop the fight and take a point or issue a warning, whether the stomp was intentional or not.
Actually Pereira stomped some japanese dude vía backflip in a fight, and the ref stopped the action and warned him. I’ll post the gif if i find it.
Not sure if it’s a gray area, but more that the technique is so random that, unless it actually lands as a stomp, there’s no real foul and the ref can’t do anything.
