Why MMA failed on eye pokes

LoneLynx

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for years MMA fans have been commenting on how lenient refs are about eye pokes. The rule change which was supposed to solve everything changed absolutely nothing, and that’s because it doesn’t address the real issue.

The real problem is in the way referees apply the rules. Ref always start from the point of view of “benefit of the doubt”, fights are messy, shit happens, we move on. Well here the thing tho: because fights are so messy, you will ALWAYS be able to give someone the benefit of the doubt if you think that way. Even the most blatant eye pokes in recent memory (Jones, Ponzi, Faber...) were really only obvious in replay. The ref struggles to even see the eye poke in real time, and certainly cannot tell if it was intentional or not, the ref can never really judge the intent of a fighter.

The solution is simple: stop trying to punish the intent, and just punish the act itself (extending fingers towards the face). In others words, put the responsibility of keeping fingers out of the eyes on the fighters, not on the refs.

Here’s an example from another contact sport: rugby has gone through a real transformation in the last decade or so, there used to be a lot of very dangerous tackles, in particular high tackles around the head and neck area and tip/spear tackles, where the tackler drives a player into the ground head first. The refs used to let a lot of it fly because, you know, they were “unintentional” or it was because of “momentum” or the ball carrier “slipped” some other excuse. They had to re-train the refs to understand that it is the tackler’s responsibility to keep their tackles low. Nowadays in rugby you don’t get to claim innocence because you didn’t mean it. If you fail to tackle below the neck, you get penalized, end if the story, no grey area. If you pick a player up off the ground in a tackle, it’s your responsibility to put him down safely. That’s the way rugby rules are being applied nowadays, the same cultural shift needs to happen in MMA.
 
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Agreed.

How is it unintentional when you're breaking the rule by purposely extending your fingers out?
 
It’s getting ridiculous. I feel like there’s been more fouls, bad stoppages, and bad judging than ever before.
 
There isn’t such a thing of unintentional eye poke
 
so swift judgement? am I understanding this correctly that the moment a fighter extending his finger / putting his palm around his opponent that'll be counted as violation?
 
for years MMA fans have been commenting on how lenient refs are about eye pokes. The rule change which was supposed to solve everything changed absolutely nothing, and that’s because it doesn’t address the real issue.

The real problem is in the way referees apply the rules. Ref always start from the point of view of “benefit of the doubt”, fights are messy, shit happens, we move on. Well here the thing tho: because fights are so messy, you will ALWAYS be able to give someone the benefit of the doubt if you think that way. Even the most blatant eye pokes in recent memory (Jones, Ponzi, Faber...) were really only obvious in replay. The ref struggles to even see the eye poke in real time, and certainly cannot tell if it was intentional or not, the ref can never really judge the intent of a fighter.

The solution is simple: stop trying to punish the intent, and just punish the act itself (extending fingers towards the face). In others words, put the responsibility of keeping fingers out of the eyes on the fighters, not on the refs.

Here’s an example from another contact sport: rugby has gone through a real transformation in the last decade or so, there used to be a lot of very dangerous tackles, in particular high tackles around the head and neck area and tip/spear tackles, where the tackler drives a player into the ground head first. The refs used to let a lot of it fly because, you know, they were “unintentional” or it was because of “momentum” or the ball carrier “slipped” some other excuse. They had to re-train the refs to understand that it is the tackler’s responsibility to keep their tackles low. Nowadays in rugby you don’t get to claim innocence because you didn’t mean it. If you fail to tackle below the neck, you get penalized, end if the story, no grey area. That’s the way rugby rules are being applied nowadays, the same cultural shift needs to happen in MMA.
You said it yourself: the ref can't see the action in real time. So any rule just taking away points at the first time it happens will just result in guys faking getting poked in the eye like soccer players fake injuries to get the other team red cards.
 
You said it yourself: the ref can't see the action in real time. So any rule just taking away points at the first time it happens will just result in guys faking getting poked in the eye like soccer players fake injuries to get the other team red cards.

It’s relative, I said they struggle to see them, but they are better at seeing them than at judging intent.
 
It all started with Shields against GSP
 
This goes to the way fights are scored. I think refs are loathe to deduct points except for things that are so obviously blatant they have to. In round by round scoring it's awfully hard to come back from loss of rounds (by points taken away).

That wasn't the case in Pride where they scored fights as a whole and how MMA should be scored, in my opinion. The issuing of yellow cards for infractions and the subsequent purse deductions could be used by the UFC. Hit the offenders in the pocketbook and give a percentage of their purse to their victims like they do for fighters missing weight. A loss of income might make them close their damned hands.

Then, of course, there were the Pride gloves that better kept fighters from stretching their fingers straight out. Dana and the UFC promised something like that years ago and we're still waiting.
 
This is happening because of insufficient post-fight rulings on eye pokes.

The UFC should set up a panel of experts under the supervision of the NSAC that review all UFC* fights involving fouls. When that panel decides that an eye poke changed the course of a fight, or if they decide that a given fighter is intentionally eye poking opponents over multiple fights, then they should hand out retroactive disqualifications (DQs).

Only when fighters have wins taken away from them AFTER THE FIGHT for eye pokes will other fighters see it's not worth doing. Eye pokes are too complicated to deal with within a single event by a referee, and they transcend multiple fights. The average fighter might commit 1 eye poke foul every 3-4 fights, and then some fighters are intentionally poking opponents multiple times per fight. That fighter with multiple pokes per fight should have all of those wins changed to DQ losses retroactively. Until the rules adapt to deal with this, eye pokes will continue to benefit the fighters committing fouls.

Because right now it benefits fighters to poke their opponents. If you're getting 1-2 fouls per fight that are going to affect your opponents vision and concentration, your performance will improve by taking those free fouls.
 
Just make it an instant DQ and watch as suddenly there will be no more accidents or 'unintentional' pokes.
 
I don't see how it's unintentional in this case, especially when the poke is the only logical conclusion from that type of motion.

Fingers pointing out to find distance, maybe, but a swipe like that? Hell no.
 
Something definitely needs to be done. Maybe finally going to Prides gloves?
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Not sure it would change things, but it’s worth trying.
 
for years MMA fans have been commenting on how lenient refs are about eye pokes. The rule change which was supposed to solve everything changed absolutely nothing, and that’s because it doesn’t address the real issue.

The real problem is in the way referees apply the rules. Ref always start from the point of view of “benefit of the doubt”, fights are messy, shit happens, we move on. Well here the thing tho: because fights are so messy, you will ALWAYS be able to give someone the benefit of the doubt if you think that way. Even the most blatant eye pokes in recent memory (Jones, Ponzi, Faber...) were really only obvious in replay. The ref struggles to even see the eye poke in real time, and certainly cannot tell if it was intentional or not, the ref can never really judge the intent of a fighter.

The solution is simple: stop trying to punish the intent, and just punish the act itself (extending fingers towards the face). In others words, put the responsibility of keeping fingers out of the eyes on the fighters, not on the refs.

Here’s an example from another contact sport: rugby has gone through a real transformation in the last decade or so, there used to be a lot of very dangerous tackles, in particular high tackles around the head and neck area and tip/spear tackles, where the tackler drives a player into the ground head first. The refs used to let a lot of it fly because, you know, they were “unintentional” or it was because of “momentum” or the ball carrier “slipped” some other excuse. They had to re-train the refs to understand that it is the tackler’s responsibility to keep their tackles low. Nowadays in rugby you don’t get to claim innocence because you didn’t mean it. If you fail to tackle below the neck, you get penalized, end if the story, no grey area. That’s the way rugby rules are being applied nowadays, the same cultural shift needs to happen in MMA.
Totally. I’ve never seen a ref call intentional on eye-stuff, so as far as I’m concerned, that category doesn’t even exist.

Let’s get rid of the “crime of intent” concept and just penalize the fuck out of eye pokers. As things stand, committing eye-pokes/rakes is the SMART thing to do.
 
Swap. To hybrid sparring gloves. You can still grapple and it almost eliminates eye pokes.
 

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