The UFC could change its rules surrounding eye pokes after Tom Aspinall was the victim of an unintentional foul from Ciryl Gane.
It left the heavyweight champion unable to continue with the UFC 321 main event in Abu Dhabi prematurely ended to leave fans dissatisfied and controversial opinions swirling.
The no contest decision has provoked major debate around MMA circles with UFC president Dana White stating in the post-fight press conference that a rematch would be booked as soon as possible.
And now UFC referee Herb Dean has revealed that a meeting will take place in November to discuss a potential rule change and eliminate the ambiguity surrounding whether the fighter intended to use an eye poke or not.
“Enough people are fed up with the eye poke situation that something is going to be done,” Dean told Helen Yee Sports. “The thing with changing rules, there are always unintended consequences. But we have to try something. People are ready to move on and try something with that.
“There’s gonna be a meeting where we go over that. Definitely something’s gonna happen. Enough people are upset, enough of the right people. Some people have been talking, it’s got enough momentum… For people to vote on a rule change, there are a bunch of rule changes we should do; we’ll get to those, too.
“One of the silliest rules we have. We have this intentional and unintentional? The referee is supposed to be a mind reader? We need to change that. There are a lot of things that have happened and ways you have to go. If it’s intentional, you have to do certain things, if it’s unintentional, you have to do other things.It’s one of the most annoying things; fighters know it, and there are ways they can game the system.
“I like the word “reckless”, and also not making it so that, “if then…” This one, with the eye poke, taking away some of our latitude, with the intentional v unintentional, that one should not be “if then…” and give us a little more room.
“Some suggestions are going to be an automatic point, and see what happens with that, automatic point taken away. Eye pokes are difficult as they happen in real time, you try to be in a good position, but if fighters move, then something happens you have to make a decision on the spot. If you call it, and it wasn’t, you just took the win from that guy. We’ll talk about a bunch of scenarios. I don’t know what will happen, but it’ll be discussed next week, early next week, I think there’s a conversation on the fourth (of November).”
