Andy Foster Says It Is Time to Ban MMA Oblique Kicks
Andy Foster wants the oblique kick out of mixed martial arts.
The California State Athletic Commission executive director told Ariel Helwani that the strike costs fighters more than the sport needs to keep it. The conversation picked up after UFC 331 on September 19 in Los Angeles, when Edmen Shahbazyan spent parts of his win over Brunno Ferreira asking the referee to treat kicks to the knee as fouls.
They are still legal. Foster wants that changed.
“Yeah, I think it’s time,” Foster said. “I think that there are more risk than we should require our fighters to have to deal with to participate in mixed martial arts.”
He described the target as the back of the knee and the ligaments around it. “This is a kick that has a long, a long healing time and can have really a lifelong effect, and fighters have a short window, and at some point they’re gonna be done with this.”
Andy Foster said a clean oblique kick can wreck more than one structure at once. “It’s about that oblique ligament, the back of the knee. You essentially get the unhappy triad or whatever, as the doctors call it. You bust all of those ligaments at once if this thing lands right.”
That is the part he will not accept as the cost of doing business. “Somebody could have a lifelong injury from this that they’re gonna deal with way after this is over. It’s not worth it.”
He does not think fans lose a real weapon if the kick disappears. “I don’t think the public loses anything if this kick is banned. There’s plenty of other techniques if you’re using it for distance.”
Foster drew a line between using the kick to keep someone off you and using it to blow out a joint. “I think a lot of fighters are, at least the ones that use it, the idea is to basically hyper extend the knee and bust these ligaments to win that way. I think that’s what it’s for.”
If the point is range, he said there are other options. “If you’re using it for distance, you can use a teep or a front kick or different things like that. There’s other tools.”
Commissions have already taken techniques off the board. Foster put this in that same file. “We have precedent with this area. There’s other things that we’ve banned over the years. I think it’s time.”
Helwani asked why the issue feels urgent now after years of Jon Jones making the kick famous. Foster pointed back to UFC 331.
“Shabazzian got hit, you saw at 331,” Foster said. “And he looked at Mike, and Mike’s like, it’s legal.”
That is how the night looked from the commission side. Shahbazyan thought the kick should be a foul because that is how it feels when it lands. The referee told him the rule book still allows it.
Foster said that moment was one reason the topic is back on the table. He also said California is preparing a broader rules package, not a one-item vote.
“I’ve been thinking about it for a while, cause we’re gonna go through kind of a rule, we’re gonna kind of fix quite a few things in one swoop here with the rules.”
Dana White has already said he does not disagree with Foster on this. That does not make the kick illegal tomorrow. Unified rules still have to move through commissions, and Foster has not claimed a ban is already in force.
What he has claimed is the argument. The kick can end a career after the lights go out. Fighters do not get those years back. He would rather they keep the teep and lose the ligament tear.
