LAS VEGAS – Henry Cejudo is not happy with the way the eye pokes issue has been handled.
Cejudo (16-5 MMA, 10-5 UFC) was victim of a nasty eye poke in his fight against Song Yadong, which ended up being a technical decision loss on his record. Cejudo was poked in the eye toward the end of Round 3, but chose to fight out the rest of the round after taking the full five minutes to try and recover.
Advertisement
Once the round was over, Cejudo said he couldn’t see. The fight went to the judges’ scorecards, and Song was awarded the win.
Cejudo was especially angry with the way referee Jason Herzog dealt with the situation; he didn’t deduct a point from Song. But after Tom Aspinall went through a similar situation in his title fight against Ciryl Gane at UFC 321 in October – he’s yet to be cleared to train – Cejudo says something has to change.
“I think everybody needs to man up,” Cejudo told MMA Junkie and other reporters during a media scrum. “Dana White, the Nevada State Athletic Commission, the referees, and just make a f*cking decision. Dude, that’s bullsh*t. If we’re being warned in the back, all right then: I’m going to start taking my fingers and I’m going to start sticking you in the eye, too. I get a warning. That’s not fair. Everybody needs to f*cking man up and step up and make this thing official.
“Somebody could lose an eye. (Micheal) Bisping, (his eye is) deformed for life. That sucks. One it happened to me. Two, there’s Bethe Correira. There’s a lot of people that have eye issues that you guys don’t even know about. So it starts here, and I think it needs to be immediate, and if not, I think people need to be held accountable for that stuff. … Everybody needs to step up – everybody, including Dana White.”
Advertisement
Cejudo thinks the issue is beyond changing the gloves, which the UFC tried to do for a while before going back to the original ones.
“No, that glove, that’s a bunch of bullsh*t,” Cejudo said. “Just don’t (stick your fingers out). That’s it. Anything that has to do with (fingers in the eyes) should automatically be a point. Anything (in the eyes). Dude, keep your hands closed.”
The former UFC dual-champion returns for the final fight of his career when he takes on Payton Talbott (10-1 MMA, 4-1 UFC) on Saturday’s UFC 323 (pay-per-view, ESPN2/FX/Disney+, ESPN+) main card at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Henry Cejudo: Dana White, commission need to ‘man up’ about eye pokes
