Michael Bisping Wants ‘Tougher Penalties’ For Illegal Knees

Michael Bisping wants to see fighters who throw or land illegal knees face “tougher penalties”.

At UFC 259 Petr Yan lost his bantamweight title after being disqualified for kneeing Aljamain Sterling while he was down.

Earlier this week Demetrious Johnson suffered his first-ever stoppage defeat when he was dropped by an uppercut then nailed with a knee while he tried to get up at ONE on TNT 1 – knees to a grounded opponent are legal under the ONE Championship banner.

Many fans have debating if knees to a grounded opponent should be legal throughout MMA.

During a recent interview with MMA Junkie, Bisping gave his opinion.

“It’s a tricky one,” Bisping said. “Because I’m not for a guy being on his knees and kneeing him square in the head if you’re standing up because you can generate so much power. So much power like that, and you can really hurt someone. We’ve been very lucky: We’ve never seen a tragic accident or injury in the UFC. But we don’t want to do things that might encourage that one day. All this hard work the UFC’s done, and the media, in making this sport as widely accepted as it is, all it needs is one death, and God forbid, things change. So I’m not for that. But it is a tricky one.

“I hate seeing people play this game of putting their hand down – it’s a bit of a cowardly move, if you ask me,” Bisping added. “I don’t know, because they always talk about, ‘Was it intentional, or was it not intentional?’ Well, they’re always intentional. You didn’t accidentally knee him. But they didn’t necessarily know that he was technically down. But yes, of course your brain sends the message to throw the knee, and you throw it to the face.

Bisping was deducted a point for illegally kneeing a downed in Jorge Rivera at UFC 127 in 2011. ‘The Count’ went on to secure a second-round TKO win.

“And I know a lot of people watching this might be thinking that I’m a hypocrite because they’re probably thinking about Jorge Rivera. I did knee him in the face when he was down, but he was getting up and in the heat of the moment, you’re in a fight. Adrenaline is spiking like crazy, and especially if you think you’ve got him hurt and you’re going to win the fight, you’ve got to make these micro judgements in a fraction of a second – and it’s very hard. So I don’t think they need to change the rules necessarily, but just tougher penalties.”

Do you agree with Michael Bisping? Should fighters who throw/land illegal knees face tougher penalties?