Nevada Allows 5 Round Non Title Fights

[Marquis]

The Nevada State Athletic Commission held a regulatory meeting on Wednesday, which often consists of lots of little tweaks to the regulations and/or their wording. But this time, there were a few notable exceptions.

One of the biggest bits of news to come out of the meeting was the institution of instant replay in limited situations in a mixed martial arts bout. The gist of the new rule basically says that if a fight ends on an injury to one combatant, the referee has the leeway, if it is available, to look at a replay of the fight ending action and determine if the action was legal, resulting in a TKO victory, or illegal, resulting in a no contest.

The other major provision coming out of the meeting was, hopefully, an end to the UFC 94 "greasegate" issue arising over UFC welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre's improper usage of Vaseline during the bout. The new rule, dubbed "The B.J. Penn Rule," now prohibits a fighter or his camp from utilizing any foreign substance immediately before or during a bout to gain an unfair advantage.

Commission representatives, such as cut men, are still allowed to apply Vaseline or other substances before or during a fight to try and limit the amount of damage due to cuts, but it is now considered a foul if a fighter or his corner applies any foreign substance.

The commission also passed a regulation that allows for five-round non-title bouts in MMA between two athletes, “as long as, of course, they are of championship caliber,” according to Executive Director Keith Kizer.

The move to allow non-title bouts to go to a five-round duration basically puts MMA on par with boxing in such regards. There are often marquee non-title bouts in boxing, such as the upcoming Floyd Mayweather, Jr. vs. Juan Manuel Márquez, that are scheduled for the same 12-round duration as a title bout.

This opens things up for promotions such as the UFC to have marquee bouts on a fight card that are not-title bouts, such as the recent UFC 99 bout between Rich Franklin and Wanderlei Silva, but still have them go five full rounds.

Taken from MMAweekly. I think this is fantastic news, I actually came across this a few days ago and was very pleased to read it. This past year has shown us a good number of championship caliber fights that headline events, but only get 3 rounds. Such as Wanderlei Silva Vs. Rich Franklin, Rich Franklin Vs. Dan Henderson, and the upcoming Nogueira Vs. Couture fight. All of these fights are championship caliber fights, and should be treated as such, and now they will be in Nevada where the UFC holds most of their events, and almost all their big ones. I hope other states follow Nevada and pass the the 5 round non title rule. If 5 round non title fights becomes a regular rule in MMA, it will serve to increase the level of competition. No longer will top 10 fighters in their respective weight class just have to train their cardio for 3 round fights, they would have to normally train for 5 rounder since any top 10 can have a championship caliber match. And with having to train harder in case their fight becomes a 5 rounder, competition improves.

Thoughts?

 

[jmt225]

Definitely good news.

If I were the UFC or any MMA company fighting in Nevada, I would not go overboard with it though. Main events, and fights to determined who gets a title shot afterwards are the only cases where they should take advantage of this new 5 Round rule. That's it. If they overdue it, then it'll devalue Title shots and it'll makes less fights for undercard.

But yeah... even with that possibility, I still very much love this rule was passed. As you mentioned Marquis, there have been so many fights that would've been solved if it had a couple of extra rounds. Hopefully now with this new rule that becomes less of a problem and we get legitimate winners in every big fight.