Paul Gift Joins Press Row

Every Wednesday, Administrative Editor Jordan Breen welcomes a member of the mixed martial arts media into “Press Row” on the Sherdog.com blog. This week, Breen is joined by BloodyElbow.com's Paul Gift.

Although last week's annual Association of Boxing Commissions' convention in Las Vegas made headlines because of the political brouhaha surrounding several prominent commissions not attending and attempting to start their own rival sanctioning body, the convention's primary goal as it concerns MMA was to clarify some of the language contained in the Unified Rules. Breen and Gift, who was on site in “Sin City”, discuss the key points of the rule amendments, including the debate between “damage” and “impact”, the usage of 10-10 and 10-8 rounds and the difficulties in achieving a truly unified set of rules, given the dissent of the aforementioned commissions, as well as the shortcomings of many smaller commissions in North America.

Breen also talks with Gift about the latter's own experiences taking “Big” John McCarthy's Command officiating course, which notable judges showed up to take the seminar, how officials are trained and what they're taught to look for when scoring fights, what fights were used as teaching materials in the course and why Clay Guida's UFC career is so surprisingly valuable as an educational tool.

Grab your credential and get a seat in “Press Row.”

The above file can be saved in MP3 format here.

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