The fallout of UFC 321’s main event has sparked serious conversation about eye pokes in mixed martial arts, which in turn has led to a meeting next week to discuss the matter in detail.
In case you missed it, UFC 321’s heavyweight title fight between Tom Aspinall and Ciryl Gane ended in disaster last weekend. That’s because Gane landed two simultaneous eye pokes in the first round that rendered Aspinall unable to continue. The unfortunate end to UFC 321’s anticipated pay-per-view (PPV) card has left everyone pointing fingers and wondering what can be done in the future to avoid such an incident.
Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be a perfect solution to the ongoing eye poke issue we’re seeing in MMA. UFC tried switching to different gloves and that only resulted in less knockouts for fans. Fighters are doing their best to keep their fists closed, but when the action gets going it’s tough not to react with fingers out. It’s anyone’s guess how things will be fixed.
Luckily, a discussion about possible fixes is almost underway.
That’s according to long-time MMA referee, Herb Dean, who told MMA reporter, Helen Yee, earlier this week that a meeting about eye pokes will be held on Nov. 4. Check it out below:
“Enough people are fed up with the eye poke situation that something is going to be done,” said Dean. “There’s gonna be a meeting where we go over that. Definitely something’s gonna happen. Enough people are upset, enough of the right people. Some people have been talking, it’s got enough momentum… Early next week, I think there’s a conversation happening on the fourth [of November].”
Dean, who has been around the sport for a very long time, has seen almost all there is to see as a UFC official. He has some inside scoops that many of us wouldn’t even think about. For example, Dean claims that some fighters admit to intentionally committing fouls after they’ve stepped away from fighting. That definitely doesn’t bode well for these pesky eye pokes.
“There are some good people, and they’re not doing fouls on purpose,” explained Dean. “Then there are a lot of guys that say, ‘Well, every groin kick that I ever did was intentional.’ And these are guys, once they’ve retired, they’re telling me, ‘Oh yeah, that fight when you refereed me, that was intentional when that happened.’”
