“THE ABC IS CHANGING….oh…the MMA judging…No, no, that’s cool too…”

As some of you may know, I am working towards my master’s degree when I’m not writing for Cage Potato and currently preparing to defend my thesis. Because of this, I have been dragged into more semantics arguments than a person should ever admit to. I’ve had to defend every little “a” that could have been a “the” with Griffinesque tenacity - and I haven’t even defended the damn thing yet. Anyone who has ever attended graduate school can sympathize.

So when The Association Of Boxing Commissions (ABC) announced their newest revisions to the MMA Judging criteria at their annual conference, I read the document with skepticism. The fact that one of the new revisions removed the word “damage” from the scoring criteria partially so that opponents of MMA sanctioning can no longer point to the rulebook and say “LOOK, DAMAGING YOUR OPPONENT IS A RULE!” didn’t exactly help matters. Needless to say, I was pleasantly surprised when I saw that some of the rule changes are actually pretty damn important.

As you may have heard, the Association of Boxing Commissions got together in Montreal recently to discuss unified rules for mixed martial arts. Initially, this sounded like a good idea. They finally nailed down exactly what it means to strike to the back of the head, for example, which is long overdue. But inexplicably, they also came up with a bunch of new weight classes. And by new, we don’t just mean that they added some lighter weights, though they did that too. They also added new divisions between the divisions, such as 175 and 225 pounds, to name just two. This was immediately blasted as a bad idea by almost everyone who matters.

“No, we’re not following that,” Dana White told Yahoo! Sports.

“The weight classes in New Jersey are going to stay according to the original unified rules,” said Nick Lembo, counsel for the New Jersey State Athletic Control Board.

“Where did it need to be fixed?” said Bernie Profato, of the Ohio State Athletic Commission. “I’ve had over 300 MMA fight (cards) in the state of Ohio. … Not one time have we ever heard, ‘Hey, we’ve got to change these weight classes.”

In other words, most everyone agrees that it’s a bad idea. Not only is it unnecessary, but the people who the ABC would depend on to adopt and legitimize it — state athletic commissions, the UFC — are totally against it. This begs the question, who’s for it? The answer: Big John McCarthy.

The former UFC referee told MMA Junkie that because more people were getting into the sport, more weight classes would eventually become necessary:

(ABC Wide World of Sports’s “Agony of Defeat” skier: The ’70s version of Anderson Silva’s thai clinch.)

With EliteXC readying its blockbuster cards on CBS and Strikeforce getting some late-night love from NBC, the UFC is running out of major networks to sign with. But if the latest “informed speculation” turns out to be true, we could eventually see some Octagon fights on ABC. MMAPayout passes along this unconfirmed report:

The UFC and ESPN are discussing a potential strategic partnership. Representatives from each company reportedly met for what were described as extensive discussions last week in New York and Bristol, Connecticut. While Spike is the official cable home of the UFC, there is no longer an ABC Sports division, only ESPN on ABC, leading to speculation that such a partnership could lead to live events on ABC.

Screw creative control: If I’m Dana White, I’m going to do everything in my power to make this happen, “gladiator intro” be damned. Because if ABC gets snatched up by some other fight club, then the UFC is basically locked out of network television. Now is the time to make a deal. Pull back the ego a little bit and make it happen.

Semi-related: I just realized that I can’t name any show that’s currently airing on ABC. For my benefit, please post a comment with the name of a series that’s on that network — without consulting Wikipedia. Caller number nine gets a pair of tickets to see Blue Oyster Cult at the Rock-o-Rama.

With Tito on Celebrity Apprentice, Ricco on Celebrity Rehab, and Tank on Jimmy Kimmel Live, last night was one big TV party — and we have the couch-sores to prove it. If you had better things to do, we envy you. But here’s what you missed:

The Celebrity Apprentice
The episode began with Tito Ortiz working out and explaining his charity, St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital. A nine-year-old girl named Elizabeth with “brittle bone disease” came to meet him and gave him a drawing of a garden. Tito nearly destroyed her with a bear hug. This segment was probably thrown together to make up for the fact that he was basically absent from the rest of the episode, in which Hydra and Empresario battled to sell the most Broadway show tickets. The men sneaked off with a very close win, and Jennie Finch was fired for always taking a back-seat “assistant” role. But Tito was equally under-the-radar in the challenge, and if the men had lost, he might have been in danger of getting kicked off himself.

Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew
Ricco Rodriguez made his first appearance at the treatment facility, checking in for his habitual cocaine use. As he explained, after finding success in the UFC, he discovered cocaine, started going through an 8-ball per day, and was the first “ultimate fighter” to be suspended for coke. His usage also led to domestic disputes with his girlfriend, which once resulted in them both being arrested and their one-year-old son being taken by child protective services. Ricco came off like the classic, freaked-out cokehead on his first day in the facility, visibly nervous when the staff went through his bag, and calling out the staff and the other celebrity addicts for their hostility and rudeness, all of which was in his head. In return, the female residents seemed to find him intolorably arrogant and cocky. We don’t think little Ricco will be making any friends at camp this summer. But the most shocking moment was Ricco’s story about a car accident he was in while under the influence.