Dear Sherdog,
I've been watching through a lot of 2000-2008 era UFC, and I've noticed some things in regards to eye pokes and groin strikes.
1) Eye pokes were far, far, far less common in fights from this era. I admit I don't watch every fight nowadays, but it seems like there's an eye poke in every big fight I see, and people are always bringing up eye pokes that may have affected big fights on the forum. Likewise, referees are constantly admonishing fighters "watch those fingers", or "fingers up" in modern fights, while this never occurred during matches back then.
I theorize that it's a combination of fighters realizing they can get at least one free eye poke per fight without being penalized, and the effect of Jon Jones showing that using the threat of an eye poke is an effective way to control distance.
Additionally, jabbing may be more common now, and with more fighters thinking they know how to "flick the jab" with a relaxed hand instead of a proper closed fist, more loose fingers are going around the eyes. I feel like many fighters used more "fundamentals" in the old days, and as grapplers learned boxing they just always kept a closed fist when standing up.
2) Groin shots are also much more common. Here I think the explanation is simple; fighters are becoming more well rounded and therefore there's more leg kicks being thrown, naturally causing more nut shots.
BONUS QUESTION
I sort of always wondered why we see so few groin strikes from punches in MMA. I suppose body punches are less common in MMA than they are in boxing, but I still think it's odd that I can't think of a single example in MMA.
Inb4 Someone accuses me of saying fouls never happened in the old days. Of course they did, but seem to be significantly less common.
Love,
Mr Joyboy