5 UFC rules you might not have heard of

#3 You can’t throw in the towel

Nate Diaz's corner threw the towel in during his fight with Josh Thomson - apparently an illegal move

Okay, so I’ve been watching the UFC for around 15 years now and even I’m not sure why this rule exists. According to the official UFC rules – established by various Athletic Commissions, remember – a fighter’s corner cannot throw in the towel, and if they do so, it would result in an instant disqualification for their fighter.

Well, surely that’s the idea of throwing in the towel anyway? The only time a corner would want to throw the towel in would be in order to prevent their fighter from taking any further punishment, which would naturally force the referee to call a halt to the fight anyway. So quite why it was decided that this act would be illegal is anyone’s guess.

Strangely enough though, it appears that the coaches and training partners acting as UFC cornermen have taken this rule to heart, as throwing in the towel is one of the rarest sights in the whole sport. Cornermen stopping fights between rounds is rare enough, although it does happen – top coaches like Jason Parillo and Duke Roufus have both done it – but the only recent example of a corner throwing in the towel came in Nate Diaz’s 2013 bout with Josh Thomson.

In that fight, Diaz had essentially been knocked out by a head kick and a follow-up combination from Thomson – and by the time his brother Nick threw the towel in, the referee was already stepping in to call the fight off via TKO anyway. Essentially, this remains a strange rule that’s also quite underused.