Guest post by Mark Lajhner, founder and chief instructor of Kaizen MMA Academy in Belgrade, Serbia. He is a Judo black belt (Serbian national team member), BJJ purple belt and multiple medallist in Freesyle Wrestling. You can find Mark Lajhner’s FREE MMA course Here.

I think it’s time for a rule change in MMA. If’ you’d like to know exactly what aspect of MMA rules should change and why I think it will improve the sport, read on or watch this video.

MMA RULES – GSP SUGGESTED A CHANGE

About four years ago I saw George St. Pierre on Joe Rogan podcast where he discussed MMA rules, and in particular the duration of the MMA fight. He thinks that we chould do away with rounds in MMA because that’s an import from boxing. Also the point system is an import from boxing too. So he thought that fights should last longer.

That’s an interesting idea and I think he’s right but when you think about it, you still have to make it in a way that is spactator friendly. If you remember the first few UFCs where there was no time limit, some fights lasted for a long, long time. And even before in Brazil the Gracies fought for like two hours which is not something that you can sell for television.

So what do you do about it?

ONE LONG ROUND

I think that you should keep the same ammount of time alloted for a fight, but make it one round. What do I mean?

The regular MMA fight lasts for 3 rounds of 5 minutes. And there is a one minute of rest in between rounds. So you have two rests – between first and the second round, and between the second and the third round. Thats two munutes. And you have 3 x 5 rounds which is fifteen minutes. 15 + 2 = 17 minutes.

So make it a 17 minute fight. No breaks. Only in case of an injury, eye poke, groin kick or somthing like that. It should be one round only.

I think that’s better and much more in spirit of MMA.

And for the title fights that last for 5 rounds, make it last 29 minutes (5 rounds x 5 minutes = 25 minutes + 4 one minute breaks = 29 minute fight).

So you have the same ammount of time alloted for each fight as before, as in the current system, but the fight is one big long round.

Or it’s not long, depending on whether the fighter finishes the fight beffore the alloted time expires.

NO MORE “SAVED BY THE BELL”

So this is my suggestion. I think it’s much better than the round system. The fights would be judged in it’s entirety and not per round basis. That way we would avoid a “saved by the bell” type of situations. Sometimes it happens that a fighter is caught in an armbar, triangle or is rocked by strikes near the end of the round. Then the bell saves him, he recovers during the break and maybe wins the fight in the next round.

A DISADVANTAGE FOR EXPLOSIVE FIGHTERS?

This might be a disadvantage for fighters that are very explosive and don’t have a lot of endurance, but I think it is much more in spirit of MMA.

There are more rules in MMA that can be debated and maybe changed like 12-6 elbow, but I think this is the main one. There are also the weight cutting issues and other things but this is the first thing that should be changed.

Tell me what you think. Do you think that the rules of MMA should be changed in a away I just proposed. Let me know in the youtube comments or bellow.