Did Goddard do the right thing in response to Alvarez's elbow?

Eddie Alvarez was sitting in a rather nice place

Midway through the second round of his fight against Dustin Poirier at the UFC on Fox 30, Alvarez had managed to transform the love of Poirier in an advantageous position. himself, the one in which he could take his time and pick his shots with Poirier trapped against the cage.

That's when things took a turn.

Apparently on the advice of his corner, Alvarez (29-6 MMA, 4 -3 CFU) threw an elbow on the Trapped Pear (24-5 MMA, 16-4 UFC). But the closeness and the need to keep Pear's body and legs limited limited his options for striking angles. Then Alvarez raised his right arm upward, striking Poirier near the base of his neck.

He did not seem to do any damage, but referee Marc Goddard intervened anyway. As he informed an incredulous Alvarez after finding him and taking his position as punishment, the shot was illegal – not because of the place where he landed, but because of the trajectory on which he traveled

. -6 elbow, a term more or less coined by longtime MMA referee and current commentator Bellator John McCarthy. As McCarthy told MMAjunkie in 2014, he invented it almost by chance while trying to clarify exactly what the authors of the unified rules meant when they banned "nudges down." [19659002] "I said: fighter goes from 12 o'clock to 6 o'clock in a straight line, it's an illegal bend? ", said McCarthy." [They said] Yes. "But if you're from 9 am to 3 pm the same way, it's legal?" Yes. … The way things go, when I started teaching the rule to other people, I would just say, "You can not go from 12 o'clock to 6 o'clock." Any other modifying the shot makes it legal. Any elbow that has an arc makes it legal. Even if your hand starts straight, but you lower it and that it has a bow near the bottom, it makes it legal. "

McCarthy was not a fan of the ruler.UFC commentator, Joe Rogan, did not nor did the accused charge the inclusion solely because they saw too many karate practitioners breaking breeze blocks with elbows dropped on cable TV.

Even after several exams and revisions of the rules, the prohibition of the elbow from 12 to 6 remains in force.At the same time, the elbow from 11:45 to 5:45 am still quite legal

This distinction can become blurred, especially in the fire of A fast battle, which makes the application of the rule difficult. Then there is the question of sav See what to do about this because sometimes a 12-6 elbow can contribute to a TKO stop (see also: Jon Jones vs. Matt Hamill), while on other occasions, as in this case, he does so nothing of consequence.

Poirier will later say that he informed Goddard of how completely he was unscathed from the illegal shot. Yet, if Goddard saw Alvarez land an illegal move, did not he have to do something? Would not he be ignoring the rules if he let it slide?

Then Goddard chose to hold the fighters upright and take the place of Alvarez, but did not punish him beyond that. According to the letter of the law, this seemed to be a justifiable decision. Alvarez did not care. Nor his friend Kamaru Usman, who criticized Goddard on Twitter before apologizing and removing his tweet on the subject.

We can never know how much this affected the outcome of the fight, since Alvarez was injured by strikes and finished with a burst a few moments later, but it's hard to blame Goddard here .

The rule may be a problem, but it is always a rule. If we do not like it, it seems that the thing to do is to focus on the people who keep it in the books – not the one who imposes it.

For full coverage of the UFC on FOX 30, see the UFC Events section of the site.