Because of the violent nature of what happens in mixed martial arts (MMA), some rules need to be set in place… Rules, which will make the fights safer for the athletes in the octagon.
However, in some MMA promotions, these rulesets don’t make much sense. Or they don’t make sense at all. For instance: making a fighter stand up when he has full Mount and goes for an Americana.

Yeah, that actually happened at the AMC Fight Nights (AMC FN) promotion; which brands itself as “Russia’s largest MMA promotion and organizer of tournaments”.
Their most recent event was the AMC Fight Nights 114 tournament, which took place in Minsk – and where the main match was between Zuluzinho vs. Peter Romankevich.

Well, at one point during that fight, Zuluzinho mounted Romankevich and went for the Americana submission. As he was working towards it, the referee suddenly stood up the fight… To obvious confusion of both athletes.
Nevertheless, the fight resumed standing up. But then, seconds later, Romankevich set up a precise high kick; followed with a barrage of punches – which dropped Zuluzinho to the mats.

Watch it take place below:

My GOD. Petr Romankevich brutally KO’s Zuluzinho after a terrible stand up by the referee. Absolutely faceplanted #AMCFN114 pic.twitter.com/2zrwK32wS7

— caposa (@Grabaka_Hitman) September 3, 2022

So why did the referee stand the fighters up? Apparently, it’s because of the “one-minute rule”, which the AMC FN introduced 5 months ago.
The rule stipulates that the fighters are to be stood up after 1 minute of ground work, regardless if there’s a submission in place or not:

Yes pic.twitter.com/coxUHffH64

— AlreadyDemon (@AlreadyDemon) September 3, 2022