Thiago Santos has basically been on both sides of the oblique-kick debate. He knows how nasty that kick can be, and he also knows what it’s like when your knees pay the price. ‘Marreta’ famously fought Jon Jones at UFC 239 with a knee that was already compromised before the fight even ended up costing him both knees.

So, yeah, if anyone has a reason to hate oblique kicks, you’d probably put Santos pretty high on that list. But surprisingly, Thiago Santos isn’t calling for the technique to be banned. The former UFC title challenger doesn’t see oblique kicks as some impossible-to-defend, borderline-illegal move. And according to the Brazilian, MMA already has plenty of legal techniques that can wreck a fighter’s legs just as badly.

“I personally don’t see the need to ban oblique kicks,” Santos said in his native Portuguese during an interview with Guilherme Cruz.”I don’t see it as an illegal technique, a technique that’s that difficult to defend from.

“Then you are going to say it causes a lot of damage. Man, I think a well-placed kick, like an Edson Barboza kick, a well-placed low kick to the knee, can cause a lot of damage.”

Thiago Santos’ comments come just one week after California State Athletic Commission executive director Andy Foster floated the idea of having officials take a closer look at lateral knee kicks and whether they should eventually be added to the list of fouls.

But the Brazilian isn’t buying the argument that dangerous automatically means illegal. As far as he’s concerned, fighters have ways to deal with an oblique kick before it lands.

“And the guy has the option to block it or move his leg out of the way,” Santos explained.”So I think it works the same way. The guy can bend his knee, move his leg out of the way, move to the side.

“There are a few ways to avoid it. I don’t know. That’s just my humble opinion. I don’t see it as something that needs to be banned.”

And that’s what makes Thiago Santos’ take a little more interesting. He isn’t giving this opinion from the outside looking in. If there’s one fighter who knows exactly how ugly an oblique kick can get, it’s him.

When ‘Marreta’ challenged Jon Jones for the UFC light heavyweight title at UFC 239 in July 2019, he somehow made it through all five rounds despite his knees taking a serious beating.’Bones’ repeatedly targeted Santos’ left knee with lateral kicks, while the right knee was already giving him problems before he even stepped into the Octagon.

The 42-year-old still pushed through and took the fight all the way to the scorecards, only to lose by split decision. However, the real damage came afterward.Santos eventually needed surgery on both knees and spent more than a year on the sidelines.

He did make his way back to competition, but the version of Santos who returned never quite looked like the same guy who had stormed his way into a title fight with Jon Jones.

But even after everything he went through, the Brazilian still doesn’t think oblique kicks deserve to be singled out. In his view, MMA already has plenty of legal techniques that can cause serious damage.

Thiago Santos demands serious action for moves with real consequences

If commissions really want to clean things up, ‘Marreta’ thinks they should put more attention on fouls that are already banned but don’t always come with serious enough consequences. That means things like shots to the back of the head and eye pokes, fouls that can change a fight in an instant but, according to Thiago Santos, don’t always get punished as heavily as they should.

“There are more important things they should be focusing on,” he continued. “Like strikes that are actually illegal, like shots to the back of the head, eye pokes, to actually change the rules and impose more severe punishment for those things.

“Those are the things that are really concerning.”

Santos specifically brought up fellow Brazilian Alex Pereira and former UFC heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall while making his point.

“You look at the case of Alex Poatan himself,” he said. “You look at the case of former heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall, who almost went blind. Those are the things that really need attention.

“So fighters are more concerned about not committing those infractions. That’s what they should be focusing on, not these oblique kicks.”

The timing of Thiago Santos’ comments is pretty interesting, too, because the whole debate around illegal strikes has been heating up again. After all, there have been a few high-profile incidents recently that show exactly what ‘Marreta’ is talking about.

Ciryl Gane’s strikes to the back of the head against Alex Pereira at UFC Freedom 250 cost ‘Poatan’ his shot at the interim heavyweight title, and with it, the chance to become a three-division UFC champion.

Before that, ‘Bon Gamin’ found himself at the center of another controversial moment involving Tom Aspinall, when an eye poke played a role in the former champion being sidelined for months before eventually vacating the belt.

Those are the kinds of situations Thiago Santos believes regulators should be paying closer attention to. And that puts his stance pretty clearly on the opposite side of the conversation from Andy Foster.

While Foster has suggested that commissions should discuss whether lateral knee kicks belong on the foul list under the Unified Rules of MMA, ‘Marreta’ doesn’t seem convinced that’s where the attention needs to go, even if head honcho Dana White isn’t exactly dismissing the concerns surrounding oblique kicks.

“Yeah. Listen, he’s the most powerful guy in the commission anywhere in the world. And, yeah, we don’t disagree,” White said during a Dana White’s Contender Series press conference.

For now, oblique kicks remain perfectly legal.But with Andy Foster pushing for the issue to be discussed and the head honcho appearing open to the conversation, the debate doesn’t look like it’s going away anytime soon.