If you are one of the unfortunate few that watched the latest UFC pay-per-view that took place at a really silly time of day for most of the world, you probably ended up being rather upset that the one fight that people were really looking forward to on the card, the main event of Tom Aspinall vs Ciryl Gane, ended in a "no contest" because of an accidental eye-poke on the part of Ciryl Gane.
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The first round of this battle was actually MUCH better than I had anticipated and I believe what most other people believe in that Gane was actually getting the better of Aspinall and would have won that round.... had we actually gotten to the end of it.
Ever since the knee-to-the-head on Aljamain Sterline, who everyone has hated since that day when he claimed he couldn't continue and was awarded the belt as a consequence, I have a tendency to not believe fighters when they say they can't continue.
In the case of Tom Aspinall though, if you see the slowed down footage of the eye poke you will see that Gane's fingers were knuckle deep into his eye sockets. I do NOT believe that Tom was looking for a way out although at the time, I was on the side of the crowd in attendance that were booing him for not continuing.
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Gane, in what little bit of defense I can give one of my least liked fighters, didn't do his on purpose and he was not happy about it having happened. He was at that point in the fight landing more strikes and appeared to be in control of the stand-up game as Tom Aspinall started shooting for takedowns much earlier than expected.
Another reason to defend Gane is something I know from having been involved in the sport and I think most people that have been involved in organized fighting can relate to. When you have a sport where grappling is a big part of it and heads are bobbing towards you, the natural reaction is to use your hands to deflect it. This doesn't happen in boxing or kickboxing because people's fingers are wrapped up in pillow gloves. It doesn't happen in bare-knuckle fighting so much either because the takedown is not a huge part of that game. In MMA takedowns are a HUGE part of most fighter's strategy and you are going to experience a great deal of getting put on your back if your fists are always balled up.
This was not a Jon Jones type of thing where he actually keeps you at bay by constantly poking in your face's direction.
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Jones did this all the damn time and I am not a fan of his because of it. Other people, including Gane, do it by accident, Jones seemed to be leading in with it, perhaps hoping to set you off your game because getting poked in the eye really hurts, no matter how tough you are. Nobody has utilized the Curly defense yet, but maybe they should.
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Jokes and anti-Jones stuff aside, I really think it is time that the UFC addressed eye pokes and having some other form of punishment for it rather than to just declare a "no contest" or give the person who got poked in the eyes a certain amount of time to recover. There needs to be a penalty for doing this. People continue to use this sort of stance as a default way of squaring up because everyone in the sport knows that they are not going to face any sort of ill consequences if they do poke someone in the eyes. Jon Jones is living proof of that. How many wins does he have in his career where he eye poked his opponent? A great many of them, that is for sure.
I think that in this situation we would need to have some sort of instant replay to determine intent, if it appeared as though the person who did the poking was using extended fingers as a form or luring their opponent in for an eye poke, that's a disqualification. If it was incidental contact due to dangerous posturing, it is a point deduction. Or something... I don't know exactly what we could do here but what we are doing now... isn't working.
Ciryl Gane and Tom Aspinall are going to get their full paychecks for this fight that only took place for just over 4 minutes and there is already talk about how the rematch is going to happen as early as December where they will be paid just as much if not more for that fight as well.
If you are an elite fighter chasing a paycheck, well you wouldn't be all that concerned about a no contest would you? You didn't win, you didn't lose, and you get a guaranteed payday in the future.
To me that sounds like the opposite of punishment for poor form that can result in permanent injury or at the minimum, the early end of a fight that people in attendance and broadcast viewers all around the world paid a lot of money to see.
There needs to be another way:
Any suggestions?