OPINION: 15 elements of MMA that ought to be changed for the benefit of the sport – Week 9

There are certain aspects of mixed martial arts that simply make no sense.

And when my lovable colleague Pat McCarry took a look at the 15 ways that rugby could be improved, it struck a chord with me and made me think that, as physical as rugby is, MMA is far more dangerous and needs some improvement in pretty much all areas. There are elements of the sport that are still counter-intuitive when it comes to fighter safety, fan enjoyment and the overall legitimisation of the sport. I would like to make it clear that this is very much an opinion piece and I've decided to drip feed my ideas for rule changes over 15 weeks and, while some of them are a little bit out there, I think that they just make sense to switch up. - In Week 1 we looked at how to deal with fighters missing weight - In Week 2 we supposed that concussive brain trauma would go down if fighters fought without gloves - In Week 3 we suggested a new initiative as to how the weight cut could be made safer for fighters - In Week 4 we toyed with the idea of getting rid of the cage - In Week 5 we reckoned more weight classes should be introduced - In Week 6 we wanted all MMA judges to have some element of MMA experience - In Week 7 we looked at what would happen if stand-ups were eliminated - In Week 8 we took a gander at a potential change of the scoring system

Week 9 - Instant replays for early stoppages

This is a tricky problem to attempt to solve due to the subjective nature of what constitutes an early stoppage and whether or not the time spent reviewing a replay would allow the hurt fighter to recover. But referees jumping in prematurely is a massive issue in mixed martial arts and more fighters than ever are losing out on paychecks after referees see a fighter hit the deck. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jCrjhAOXneQ The way that I propose to resolve the issue is a complex rule amendment. I believe that all fighters' corners should be given one challenge per fight, the same way that NFL coaches can throw a challenge flag to ask a match official to review a play. To go along with that, I think that all referees should have earpieces and can be contacted by an official who's sat in front of a television monitor in the back, similar to the way that questionable tries are reviewed by a TMO in rugby. If a referee stops the fight, the losing fighters' coaches should have the ability to challenge the call which will go directly to the reviewing official. The time between a fight being waved off and the referee receiving a message of "yeah, he was definitely out," or "he didn't look to have lost consciousness" would be less than 30 seconds. If the decision was correct then whoopdedoo for the referee, the fight's over and he/she did their job perfectly. But if the reviewing official believes that the losing fighter could have continued, then I propose that the fight should be restarted but that the challenging fighter restarts in the exact same position as when the fight was waved off. The main negative in this theory is that it would hamper the tangible drama of finality that comes with knockout victories but I believe the benefit of having more accurate calls is far more important than entertainment value. Come back next week where we take a look at one of the more brainless rules in the sport... the 12-6 elbow.