The Eye Poke Issue in Mixed Martial Arts

Lately we have seen eye pokes become more prevalent in mixed martial arts (MMA). The pokes have had an impact on fights, fighters and the fans. There are a couple options to help eliminate this but will work? Re-designed gloves or making it a foul are two options that must be looked at to fix this major issue.

The eye poke issue is a hot topic and one that needs to be addressed right away before an athlete has their career ended due to a finger in the eye socket. Fighters have always been subjected to the occasional poke and maybe it is me but it seems to be happening more frequently as of late. It could be attribute to the fact that we now are able to witness more MMA than ever before but regardless, something needs to be done.

In order to fix the problem we first need to look at some of the more severe cases we have seen in recent days.

At Strikeforce Challengers in February the fight between Karl Amoussou (12-2-2) and Trevor Prangley (21-4-1) had to be stopped due to an accidental eye poke from Prangley in the first round. The doctor checked on Amoussou and once he told the doctor he could not see out of his eye, the doc and heard enough and stopped the fight. The fight ended up being a ruled a draw and both fighters would like to get back in the cage and finish this.

“Rumble” Anthony Johnson (8-3) has been involved in two fights where the orbital jab had a profound effect. The first fight took place at UFC: Silva versus Irvin in July of 2008. Johnson took such a bad eye poke it dropped him and the ref thought it was due to an uppercut. Sadly, he lost due to TKO and had some major eye problems to deal with. He later came back and fought Kevin Burns (8-4) again and this time he won.

The second fight was against Fighters.com seventh-ranked welterweight Josh Koscheck (14-4) at UFC 106. Johnson actually caught Kos in the eye and then later Josh returned the favor, twice!

These are just but a few of the major incidents. I could  continue to discuss fights like those above but I feel like we now have seen enough to move forward and discuss how to fix a problem such as this.

The first idea to fix this problem can be found by in the now defunct Pride Fighting Championships. Pride had a glove design that was much different than the current glove used by the UFC. The UFC uses a glove in which all the fingers are separate and the padding does not extend all the way to the finger tips. Pride however used a loose thumb but all four fingers were connected as well as having padding that extends all the way to the finger tips. There is no need to use a glove like the UFC has at this time. Never did anyone in Pride have issues with not being able to sink in submissions due to the glove style. It did however cut back drastically on eye pokes.

Does this mean there were never any Stooges style pokes in Pride? No, there were but they were far and few between. I am still not sure why the UFC has decided to go with the gloves they currently have but as this trend continues both the UFC and athletic commissions will be forced to examine what changes they can make to better protect the fighters.

There is another way to work on eliminating eye pokes but I don’t feel it is as effective as a change to the gloves. This would be to make it a foul in which an eye poke could lead to either a one point deduction or to a loss of a percentage of a fighter’s purse.

Many fighters like to push off to keep the distance or the paw the jab out there with fists that are not closed all the way. This leads to possible career ending injuries. Force the fighters to make a full fist when striking. Making an eye poke a foul in which the fighter gets a point deducted could make a big difference.

However I think using something more similar to the Pride yellow card system would better motivate fighters to close the fist. Pride used a yellow card if fighters were inactive. Once it was issued, that fighter lost ten percent of his fight purse that night. It made fighters become more aggressive and using this for eye pokes could be just what the sport needs to eliminate this foul.

I am of course not a fan of taking money from fighters. After all, not all fighters make the big bucks, even in the UFC. However I am first and foremost for fighter safety and I think it is the job of the organizations and the athletic commissions to protect these men and women. Right now, both are failing to make a positive impact where one is clearly needed.

I would love to hear your thoughts on the eye poke and possible solutions for the problem. As always you can comment here or join myself and Gary Friedman every Wednesday from 8-10 PM EST/ 5-7 PM PST on MMA Gospel Radio by going to www.blogtalkradio.com/mmagospel.