Referee Herb Dean says 'we haven't been enforcing' fingers extending on eye pokes rule
The foul can be a tough one to officiate because of the fingerless gloves used in MMA
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1 min read
The UFC 321 main event between heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall and challenger Cyril Gane ended when Gane poked his fingers deep into both of Aspinall's eyes. Aspinall was unable to continue, and a spirited opening round from Gane amounted to nothing more than a no-contest.
Worse for the UFC, paying customers, both fans in the arena and those who dropped significant money for the pay-per-view, are never happy when a main event ends in such an unsatisfying way.
Deepening that frustration is the inconsistent application of rules by referees on a fight-to-fight basis.
Veteran referee Herb Dean spoke on Michael Bisping's "Believe You Me Podcast" about a recent meeting of officials, not to add rules, but rather to enforce ones already in place.
"So we made a rule, it's a foul to extend the fingers towards the eyes," Dean said. "That's the rule we've already had in place. So that rule has been there, but we haven't been enforcing it. So we're going to move forward on that."
Dean seemed to explain that the lack of enforcement on the rule preventing extending fingers toward the eyes stemmed from only wanting to take action if a damaging foul had actually taken place. This means not stepping in with a warning when fingers are extended toward an opponent's face or taking points for repeated infractions, but waiting until the illegal action actually results in the direct damage of an eye poke.
"I think people would not have been used to seeing someone get a point taken, because most of the time when we take a point, it's more of reactive to the [damage] and the unbalancing of the fight that's been done by a foul, and that's the only way we can think to balance it," Dean said. "But this right here is a dangerous foul, and somebody's going to keep doing a dangerous action. We should start taking points by them doing that action before it actually happens to hurt somebody."
The vast majority of MMA fights are three-round affairs. That means a single point deduction can dramatically impact the result of a fight.
It will be interesting to see how aggressively referees approach the renewed initiative to follow a rule already on the books that could lead to fight-changing point deductions.
