UFC Hall of Famer Daniel Cormier isn’t a fan of 12-to-6 elbows and feels they should remain banned despite the recent lifting of the rule.
The 12-to-6 elbow is a straight vertical attack to a grounded opponent, which was banned for years up until this summer. The Association of Boxing Commissions and Combative Sports recently voted unanimously to lift the ban from MMA’s unified ruleset, beginning on November 1st.
Coincidentally, the ban is scheduled to be lifted just days before Jon Jones‘s anticipated return to the cage in November, likely against Stipe Miocic. Jones was the subject of a disqualification due to 12-to-6 elbow strikes against Matt Hamill before he became the UFC’s youngest-ever titleholder.
Cormier, one of the most renowned voices in modern MMA, feels the 12-to-6 elbow should be erased from the sport permanently.
Daniel Cormier expresses disdain for 12-to-6 elbows
In a recent episode of Funky and the Champ with Ben Askren, Cormier weighed in on the end of the 12-to-6 elbow ban.
“I don’t like that,” Cormier said. “I don’t like 12-to-6 elbows, and I don’t like soccer kicks. Here’s my thought: when I was fighting Rumble Johnson, you couldn’t [move the elbows straight down]. But you could do it with an arch, so I was able to cut Rumble with an arching elbow, but it came straight down…
“I just don’t want anything that makes fighting look like a street fight, that’s it. John McCain, before he passed, was against fighting because it was “human cockfighting”. They would show these videos of gang fights, people running around, and people on the ground. It starts to look like that again, and that’s not good man. The moment we start opening those rules again, it’s gonna be more and more and more, and ultimately we’ll get back to soccer kicks.”
In contrast, Cormier’s broadcast partner Joe Rogan has been a vocal critic of the ban for years. As for Jones, he has the chance to get his lone career defeat overturned after the ban was eradicated.
