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.

Lawal had crouched low out of his corner; and, Kerr threw a low kick. Lawal caught Kerr’s low kick and dumped Kerr on his stomach, beginning the onslaught of punches that ended the fight.

For Lawal, the “W” is Pyrrhic as the talented light heavyweight wastes time versus opponents, like Kerr, who don’t develop his talent.

French middleweight “Psycho” Karl Amoussou (12-2-1) dominated late replacement for “Goat” Nick Thompson (38-11-1), American wrestler John Doyle (7-8), tapping Doyle in a rear naked choke at 3:15 of round one. Amassou tripped Doyle to the ground with a hard leg kick to start the fight; but, Doyle hugged Amoussou’s leg and crawled into the Frenchman’s full guard. Amoussou swept into full mount and tagged Doyle’s head with punches as Doyle went into the desperation roll, back-to-stomach, back-to-stomach. One roll too many and Doyle found himself wrapped in Amoussou’s rear naked choke.

Middleweight “Spartan” Lucio Linhares (12-3) avenged his loss to Mikhail Zayats (8-4) when he tapped him in a rear naked choke at 1:00 of round one. Linhares staggered Zayats with a right hook to the ear. Zayats crumbled; and, Linhares pounced into the choke hold to end the fight.

Lightweight Daisuke Nakamura (18-9) defeated Frenchman “Hurricane” Ferrid Kheder (11-3) by three-round unanimous decision. Nakamura popped Kheder’s proboscis with a rising left jab and lunging straight right rounds one through three, first etching a crease in the bridge of Kheder’s nose, then leaving him snorting blood from both nostrils. In round three, the referee paused the fight unnecessarily to have the doctor look at the bloody mess. In round two, however, “Hurricane” spun a three-four combo over the straight shots from Nakamura, tagging the Japanese veteran in the head. But, Kheder longed for a brawl that Nakamura danced around. When Kheder closed in to exchange, Nakamura either landed a knee to the short rib or pulled guard, which Kheder pulled out of. At the end of round three, Nakamura pulled guard and Kheder finally played along, falling into an arm triangle as the final bell rang. Too little, too late.

Heavyweights Alexey Oleinik (6-4-1) and Rogent Lloret (6-1-1) fought to a draw. Llorent consummated the contest with a left high kick that opened a slit on Oleinik’s right eye brow early in round one. But, Oleinik answered with a slam, swept near the end of the round by Llorent. Oleinik consistently put Llorent on his back hard throughout the fight, but Llorent fed Oleinik uppercuts and knees during the in-coming and had a sweep to answer most of Oleinik’s slams. Whether Oleinik or Lloret was in top position on the mat, they played paddy-cake, neither doing damage to the other. A draw is about right.

Dutchman Jessie Gibbs (5-0) won a unanimous decision over heavyweight Brit Rob Broughton (9-4-1) in a snoozer that drew the boo-birds for both fighters. Gibbs had a nifty telegraphed-right-kick-into-straight-right technique that caught Broughton flush twice in the second round and again in the third, but Broughton walked through the punches. Gibbs also landed a hard right elbow to Broughton’s liver while in half mount in the first round. If much else landed, it must’ve been while I was dosing off; but, Gibbs earned the decision.

Polish heavyweight Michal Kita (6-2) won a first-round submission by G’n’P at 1:50 when American Lloyd Marshbanks (12-8) tapped out with a dislocated right shoulder with Kita on his back wailing right hooks into Marshbanks’s noggin. Marshbanks had shot and ate a left. Kita sprawled and tagged Marshbanks again, then swiveled to his back and punished Marshbanks until Marshbanks called it quits.

Also announced was a middleweight matchup between “Goat” Nick Thompson (38-11-1) and Frenchman “Psycho” Karl Amoussou (11-1-1).

Ostentatious former NCAA wrestling champion “King Mo” won a unanimous decision over Pancrase veteran Ryo Kawamura (9-3-2) at Sengoku Seventh Battle in Tokyo last March. He’ll fight for the first time in his home nation at Breakthrough.

Certain MMA Hall-of-Famer Frye tapped Richard Moss (7-4) in a rear naked choke at Shark Fights 4 in Lubbock last May.

Both Lawal and Frye are former Oklahoma State University wrestlers, though not on the same squads.

Former BodogFight welterweight champion Thompson will continue his run at 185 pounds after submitting to punches to The Pit’s Timothy Kennedy (11-2) at Strikeforce in Kent, south of Seattle, 19 June.

Kickboxer Amoussou knocked out Kazuhiro Hamanaka (3-6-1) with a flying knee in twenty-three seconds at M-1 Challenge 14 in Tokyo last April.

Mizuno dispatched Yoshiyuki Nakanishi (3-1) at 4:13 of round one in the main event.

American Jake Ellenberger (18-4) bounced back from a UD loss in Portland 20 June to win a UD over Frenchman “Paco” Farouk Lakebir (2-1) in Ellenberger’s Japan debut.

Countryman and former TUF contestant Mike Dolce (3-5) was TKO’d at 41 seconds of round two by middleweight “Psycho” Karl Amoussou (7-1-1) of France.

It was Dolce’s first action since season seven of TUF.

Japanese lightweight Daisuke Nakamura (15-9), fresh from knocking out Bu Kyung Jung (0-3) at DREAM.3 last May, won a decision over Bogdan Christea (4-3-1).

Dutch middleweight Jason Jones (6-3) TKO’d DEEP star “Andre” Yuta Watanabe (9-3-3) in the second round.

In SuperFights, Yuki Ito (9-3-3) and Seigo Inoue (4-3-1) came away tops in decisions versus Takaaki Aoki (4-4) and “Mike” Nobuhiro Hayakawa (1-4-2) respecitvely.

Journeyman Romano de los reyes (8-5) upset Japanese welterweight Ken Hamamura (14-5-4) by decision.

Heavyweight Jessie Gibbs (1-0) knocked out Katsuhisa Fujii (9-15-1) at 1:34 of round one.

Light heavyweight Kamil Uygun (6-2) TKO’d Yuji Sakuragi (9-12-1) in the first round.

Heavyweight Frenchman “Komodo” Malick Idiaye (2-1) wrapped up American James Jack (2-2) in a keylock at 3:54 of round one.

Keith Perrigon (2-1) TKO’d Samuel Judes (2-2) at 3:16 of round one.

Light heavyweight Christian N’Pumbu (10-1) TKO’d Bryan Harper (5-1) 32 seconds into the second round.

In M-1 Challenge’s national team format, the Netherlands crushed Japan 4-1 and France edge out the States 3-2.