Dan Hardy Is Bemused By Calls To Ban The Oblique Kick
Dan Hardy is the latest MMA personality to defend the oblique kick as a legitimate strike in MMA.
Since Khalil Rountree Jr’s finish of Modestas Bukauskas via an oblique kick, many have spoken out either for or against the strike. Many fighters like Kelvin Gastelum and Belal Muhammad have come out to call for the banning of the oblique kick. The fighters are arguing that the strike could end someone’s career.
Hardy is the one of many like veteran referee Marc Goddard, to speak up or the oblique kick and keep it a legal MMA strike. Even Bukauskas has defended Rountree’s utilization of the oblique kick that caused this debate. Hardy had this to say about the kick,
“It shouldn’t be banned, It’s an effective technique,” Hardy told Submission Radio. “If we start banning effective techniques, then we’re going to find ourselves with a very, very limited rule set. I think that we need to recognize that it’s an occupational hazard. On football fields, rugby pitches, up and down, around the world on a weekend basis, people are getting their knees destroyed in the same way that Modestas did. It happens very rarely in MMA. Anybody that says it should be banned, have them name three people that it’s happened to because it’s very difficult to recall any time when it actually happens in MMA. It’s the same as knees to the head on the ground as well. For every now and then when they do land, there’s so many times when they don’t. It’s one of those techniques that’s very difficult to land. It’s more beneficial to throw it earlier in the fight when the leg’s a bit dryer and those kind of things, but it’s such a difficult thing to land in the first place, if you can stop a fight with it, then well done. I have no problem with it.
“I can’t even believe that it’s been brought up as something that we should consider banning. It fries my brain. Honestly, it does. And the fact that professional fighters would come out and say it, you’re in the wrong sport. You’re doing the wrong thing if you’re concerned about picking up a knee injury. You know what you’re doing when you get in there. You sign a death waiver when you’re stepping in there to fight. Suck it up.”
The debate has taken off among the MMA world and seems to have heated up a bit with Hardy seemingly calling out some fighters that speak against the kick. Only time will tell if the kick will be deemed an illegal strike inside the octagon.
Do you agree with Dan Hardy?
