The times may be changing when it comes to eye pokes inside the Octagon.
There have been many controversial eye-poke incidents throughout MMA history, the latest of which resulted in last week’s heavyweight title fight between Tom Aspinall and Ciryl Gane at UFC 321 being declared a “no contest.”
Fans and pundits alike have spent the past few days pointing the finger (pardon the pun) at the UFC gloves, and even at Tom Aspinall, who was on the wrong end of a horrific double eye poke from Ciryl Gane.
Leading UFC referee Herb Dean says that something is finally being done to solve the problem.
“The thing with changing rules (is that) there's always unintended consequences, but we have to try something,” Dean told Helen Yee. “And so I think that people are ready to move on and try something with that. And there's going to be a meeting, and there's been a lot of people have been talking already, and there's going to be a meeting where we kind of go over that a little bit.”
The ongoing debate over what constitutes an intentional foul makes life difficult for the officials, along with the pressure of having to make a split- second decision in the moment that could turn a fight on it’s head.
“The thing with the eye pokes is difficult because they're happening in real time, and you have to call it,” Dean said. “And you know you always try to be in a good position, but you could be in maybe the fighters' (way), you know, you're moving around, they move and then something could happen and you see someone grab their eye.
“You have to make a decision on the spot. If you make a decision and say it was an eye poke and you call it, give the guy a break and it wasn't an eye poke (and) it was a fair blow, (then) you just took the win from that guy. And those are really hard decisions to make, you know what I mean?
“Or if you think it was wasn't a poke, now the guy has to fight through that situation. So we're going to talk about a bunch of different scenarios and I don't know what's going to happen with it, but I know it's going to be discussed next week. Early next week. I think there's a conversation happening on Tuesday the 4th.”
