UFC boss Dana White reveals harsh reality of eye pokes in MMA fights

Dana White has a reality check for fans who think UFC can eliminate eye pokes entirely.

One foul that has plagued the sport of MMA more than most is the eye poke. Not only has the foul slowed down many fights, it’s ended them prematurely. It’s been a problem in the sport throughout the years and there appears to be no sign of things slowing down.

Appearing on the “Triggernometry” podcast, White said that while UFC can make efforts to decrease the amount of incidents, it’s not something that will go away entirely (h/t MMAFighting).

“We will definitely figure something out,” White said. “It’s like bad decisions, bad referee calls, I mean it’s never going to go away. It’s always going to be here.

“It’s not like we’re going to create some f*cking invention that nobody can get eye poked again. It’s just not going to happen.”

The most recent example of an eye poke ruining a fight was the heavyweight title bout between champion Tom Aspinall and Ciryl Gane at UFC 321. Gane was finding success against Aspinall early, but he poked the champion in both eyes. Aspinall was unable to continue and the fight was ruled a no contest.

White believes the answer to reducing eye pokes is if athletic commissions hand out stiffer consequences to the fighters.

“Getting poked in the eye by anybody isn’t good,” White said. “We’ve messed around with gloves, we’ve tried to do all these things. I think the big talk is if there’s harder penalties for doing it, guys would be a lot more conscious of it.

“Because you always have these guys where you’re throwing punches and I’m blocking your punches [with my hands out and fingers extended] and then you get a guy that reaches out to catch something and the other guy is coming forward, it’s going to happen. It doesn’t happen as much as it seems. I can’t remember the number … it’s like a hundred or something eye pokes over thousands of fights.”