Bellator gloves were brought up by some fans after an eye poke ended the UFC fight between Leon Edwards and Belal Muhammad
Controversy reigned supreme in the latest UFC Fight Night event even before the main battle took place.
Judges and referees were called out for some decisions made before Leon Edwards vs Belal Muhammad but more was to come.
The main event of the evening saw a nasty eye poke from Edwards and that led to a brutal looking injury for Muhammad.
Muhammad was unable to continue as a lot of damage was done and the fight was called a no contest.
This was the first time both fighters had been part of a no contest and they now have identical 18-3 records with one no contest.
While the eye poke might have been accidental from Edwards he was warned about a similar incident in the first round by referee Herb Dean.
Edwards was extremely apologetic after the accident but this opened up another discussion that has been raging on for a while.
This isn’t the first eye poke in UFC history as many have pointed out. Jon Jones, Daniel Cormier and several other big names have been on the receiving end of some brutal pokes while they have dished some out too.
All of this stems from the design of the current UFC gloves. The gloves allow for fingers to be extended and many fighters use them when trying to block the sight of their rival.
Invariably, these fingers often end up in the eyes of a fighter and clashes need to be stopped. Stipe Miocic suffered a very serious eye injury in his second fight with Daniel Cormier and had to undergo surgery.
The current UFC Heavyweight Champion was out for almost a year recovering from the injury too.
Darren Till and Aljamain Sterling were two stars who called for new gloves from the UFC:
Bellator and Pride have been using curved gloves for a while that don’t allow fingers to be extended completely.
MMA coach Trevor Wittman also designed some curved gloves and it could be time for the UFC to adopt these.
Eye injuries are serious and everything needs to be done to protect a fighter. The curved gloves might not reduce eye pokes, which are illegal, completely, but they provide some protection when compared to the current UFC gloves.
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