Oh My God! It happened again! Only a few short weeks after Mousasi kneed Weidman into a baffling and controversial TKO win by apparently legal knees, after the bout was stopped because the referee thought the knees were illegal (what?), and after Miragliotta took all the heat for his apparent mistake, and all the discussion surrounding the use of instant replays and referee polling, it happened again. This time with the consensus one of the best referees in the business, Herb Dean. There was nothing different between the two incidents. Nothing. Except that this time it was worse. Much much worse.
Let’s take it from the top. First of all, we should remember that the new unified rules of MMA have not been adopted everywhere, which is a big part of the reason this confusion is taking place. In New York, where Weidman and Mousasi fought, the new rules had been adopted, which means that a fighter is only considered ‘downed opponent’ when both his hands (and feet) are on the ground. In Texas, where Alvarez and Poirier have just fought, the new rules had not been adopted, which means that one hand on the ground is enough to consider a fighter “downed”, and therefore illegal for his head to kneed at.
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