Most everything that includes the word “technical” should be eliminated.

This includes the term “technical knockout” (TKO) when referring to Mixed Martial Arts (MMA).

Another example is this sentence:

Technically in MMA every fight that doesn’t go to the judges can be called “referee stoppage” because even when a fighter submits, it’s up to the ref to stop the fight.

Boxing, a more brutal sport than MMA, is the exception. In boxing the term “technical” as in “technical knockout” is appropriate.

Because in boxing a knockout is when a fighter falls and doesn’t get up by the time the referee counts to ten.

But a TKO is when the ref stops the fight and declares a winner in any other circumstance; perhaps a fighter hasn’t fallen but is sagging against the ropes; perhaps the referee decides not to bother to count; or perhaps the “three knockdown rule” is in effect.

Whatever the case, the difference between a knockout and a TKO is clear and thus the term TKO is useful in boxing.

I love “Hawaii Five-0,” but in the MMA episode when the great Chuck Liddell fought Steve McGarrett and knocked him down, Dano, in McGarrett’s corner, told his buddy to “Stay down!” That’s a throwback from boxing that doesn’t apply to MMA because when a fighter falls in MMA, his opponent continues to attack him until the ref intervenes. What Dano should’ve done is thrown in the towel or tell McGarrett to verbally submit.

Speaking of submit, I submit that in MMA, there are no real knockouts, unless you define them differently from boxing knockouts.

Now to this sentence I wrote which I said should be eliminated:

“Technically in MMA every fight that doesn’t go to the judges can be called “referee stoppage” because even when a fighter submits, it’s up to the ref to stop the fight.”

The qualifier “technically” says that we can do it. But we don’t do it because the prefix “technically” is a weakener; the point I am making is trivial, the difference between submission and referee stoppage in MMA being as clear as the difference between a knockout and a TKO in boxing: submission is when a fighter stops the fight; referee stoppage is when the referee does. Calling every fight that doesn’t go to the judges “referee stoppage” is not especially helpful.

At the start of this post I said:

“Most everything that includes the word “technical” should be eliminated.”

Thus this sentence (“Technically in MMA every fight that doesn’t go to the judges can be called “referee stoppage”…) should be eliminated because it makes a point mostly irrelevant to the theme of this post.

Then I said that the term “technical knockout” when referring to Mixed Martial Arts should be eliminated.

It should be replaced by the term “knockout.” This is my reasoning:

In MMA we use the term knockout when it resembles a boxing knockout: a fighter goes down and looks like he probably wouldn’t be able to stand up by the count of ten. But in MMA we don’t count to ten.

We could use the term TKO for every referee stoppage.

But that would be “technical” so we shouldn’t. TKO sounds as boring as “referee stoppage.”

In baseball you don’t say every run scored that is not a home run is a “technical run.” You just call it a run. In football you don’t call anything a “technical touchdown.” In soccer there is no such thing as a “technical goal,” or if there were it would be to soccer’s detriment.

The word “technical” is an asterisk which weakens a statement and thus should be avoided if possible.

So let boxing have its unique knockout: your opponent doesn’t beat the count of ten.

To paraphrase Shane in the novel of the same name, nobody need ever be ashamed at having been beat by boxing. Not even Mixed Martial Arts.

MMA can have its own knockout: striking your opponent until the referee pulls you off. Don’t let the fact that this is the same as boxing’s TKO make you call it a TKO in MMA.

Because in MMA the term “technical knockout” is not useful.