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Former middleweight champion Michael Bisping knows a little something about eye injuries. “The Count” is missing his right eye.
Last weekend, the UFC 321 main event ended prematurely after champion Tom Aspinall was inadvertently poked in the eyes by challenger Ciryl Gane late in the opening round. Aspinall was unable to see so the fight was called and ruled a no contest.
Shortly after the foul occurred, Aspinall told the referee, “I can’t see,’ and days later he still can’t see out of his right eye. Bisping wants to see changes made to the rules.
“Going forward there needs to be a change because, as I said, almost every event there’s been eye pokes. Accidental, intentional, unintentional, whatever you want to call it, they happen,” Bisping said on his YouTube channel. “The rule right now is, because we have the fingers out the fingerless gloves, the rule is we have to have the fingers up. I hate that rule. It’s stupid.”
“When you’re on your feet, you have to have a closed fist. Simple as that. Not tight, not squeezed, not clinched, but the fingers bent in an almost fishlike kind of shape.
“Maybe if you’re throwing a kick, because when you throw a kick a lot of people the arm comes down to accentuate, then you can open the fist a little bit. When you’re parrying a jab, or a straight right, you can open the fist. But if you’re not engaging, you have to be like this (hands closed). And of course, if you’re throwing a punch, you have to have your fist closed,” continued Bisping.
“If you don’t, the referee straight away, without stopping them, says, ‘Hey, fingers. Fingers,’ so they know to close them a little bit. If they continue to do it, they say, ‘One more time, I’m going to take a point.’ And if they continue doing this, you stop the fight. They say, ‘You have been warned on multiple occasions, you are losing a point.’ Simple as that. If they do poke them in the eye, they take a point regardless whether or not it was intentional or unintentional. It doesn’t matter.”
Related: Tom Aspinall’s father provides eye injury update: ‘He still can’t see anything’
Ultimately, the fighters are in control of their actions and Bisping believes it’s time to hold them responsible for them too.
“Sometimes, accidentally, they do happen, but we need to be responsible for our weapons. And if we know that if one happens we’re going to lose a point, and in a three-round fight, that is massively impactful. If that happens, there’s going to be a lot less eye pokes,” he said.
“And if someone accidentally pokes someone in the eye and it wasn’t intentional, well, hard lines, so what? Who cares? The sport will improve. Less fights will get cancelled. There will be less injuries, and situations like this will not occur. And I guarantee most fighters would be on board with this,” continued Bisping.
“The Worldwide Athletic Commission should all say, ”Right, that’s it’ going forward to hopefully eradicate eye pokes. We’ve just got to make a fist. It is the most simple fix in the world.”
