Should knee kicks be legal?

Knee kicks can be very damaging in the short term or long term for fighters. Many people know of Jon Jones' love for kicking to the knees. I wonder what the rest of you think on this. Should kicks to the knee be legal in martial arts competitions? Should they maybe only be legal at professional levels? Or are they not a big enough deal to warrant concern?

 

I have very limited experience in open hand arts, so take this FWIW. I would say knee kicks should be illegal except for pros who have trained in dealing with them. As I understand it, the major governing boards of competitive MA's do a good job of creating rules.

 

Other joint-damaging techniques are legal in MMA: arm bars, heel hooks etc. Kicks to the knee are considered "cheap shots" by some spectators, and I'm inclined to agree. The person on the receiving end of those other techniques at least has an opportunity to tap out before significant damage is done.

 

Or perhaps Jones is better known for it. I have no more love nor hate for any MMA fighter over another (not a fan of the sport), it's the technique itself I don't like.

 

Not only should 'Knee kicks' be legal but knees and kicks to a downed persons head should be legal.

 

I also think bring back head butts.

 

you can move your knee out of the way.

 

Thanks for the offer but unfortunately.. or fortunately im on the other side of the planet.
Keen for you to point out my stupidness though?

 

Are we worried about the accidental long term damage to knees or the intentional long term damage to the knees?

Safety of the fighters should be the major concern. There is a saying that the competitions are all about the fighters and I tend to agree. There is going to blood, the occasional broken bones and knockouts, but if a fighter is reckless or is really trying to hurt the opponent, there should be no place for that in competition. You want a real fight, take it outside, it isn't for the ring.

I'm not saying that a fight in the ring or cage isn't real, but it is a competition and the best competitions tend to be the ones where there isn't a lot of stoppages. The competitions where the ref lets the fighters fight.

So I sort of answered where I'm coming from. Targeting the knee with kicks would be okay in competition if you didn't have fight stoppages because of it. This is pretty hard to do. Eventually you will get intentional shots to the knee area that will require fight stoppages.

Just targeting the knee is risky of accidental long term damage, but there are intentional techniques that can make it much worse. Just ask any professional football player if they know of how to use an illegal tackle on someone low and take out the target's knee in the process.

 

More people have been stopped via inside leg kicks than via side kick to the knee.

 

It's two fold. When McGregor uses it it's just a checking thigh kick, he doesn't get the extreme hyperextension that Jones does. Also with Jones it's part of a pattern of spiteful techniques. On it's own it would be fine, but when coupled with eye pokes, shoulder cranks etc, it's not a nice picture.

 

I don't understand your statement? I've seen fighters take multiple good shots to the inside thigh and after three or four you can tell it really is hurting them. I haven't seen that with a good shot to the knee. Usually one good shot to the knee and the fighter on the receiving end is hurting.

Your statement also doesn't make sense to me because if you allow any kick to target the knee, the inside leg kicks could intentionally target the inside of the knee instead of the thigh above the knee.

Are you really saying that certain kicks to the knee are okay, but other kicks are not? Or are you saying all types of kicks to the knee should be okay?

 

Nope im saying kicks to the knee is aye OK.

 

In my opinion it's a peerectly valid technique. Learn to defend against it. I know I can. We practice to the lower thigh and it's not hard to counter.

It's interesting that on one of the really big mma forums a lot of guys are against it because it's "dirty". Those same guys also want head stomps brought back and culturally to me those are disgusting and life threatening.

I wouldn't minD knees to a downed opponent though. It makes wrestling more of a threat.

 

I think they should still be legal. They aren't insta-crippling fight enders.

 

I think you will find most mma fighters want less rules. Fair enough.

 

I dunno, makes shooting substantially riskier.