The Association of Boxing Commissions is meeting this week in Montreal and on the agenda is some fine tuning to the unified MMA rules. No major changes are on the docket, but some needed clarifications will be dealt with:

The Montreal meeting of 58 sanctioning bodies from Canada and the U.S. aims to clarify grey areas such as what constitutes a strike to the back of the head. The rule, which is often tough for refs to interpret, is designed to protect a fighter from being struck in the sensitive area where the neck meets the head.

A big item on the agenda is to establish amateur MMA rules and a credible record- keeping system that will stop fighters from using bar brawls and backyard tilts as part of their professional record.

“We needed to develop stronger guidelines with respect to determining a fighter’s true record,” says Kliparchuk.

“The record keeper is designed in such a way, where only commissions can input results and only events sanctioned under the authority of a commission will count as an official record. This hopefully is part of the process of discouraging underground and unsanctioned shows.”

The record system also aims to stop suspended fighters from fighting for different promotions through a universal tracking mechanism.

The record keeping issue is definitely something that needs to be dealt with. Right now its possible to check a fighter’s record online and find as many different W/L numbers as there are sites that compile this information.

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