Longtime UFC commentator Joe Rogan has seen the highs and lows of mixed martial arts, but he feels the UFC’s gloves still haven’t significantly improved.
The UFC debuted new fighter gloves earlier this year, as showcased at UFC 302 in Newark. The card’s main event fighters, Islam Makhachev, and Dustin Poirier, both donned new golden championship gloves during their title fight.
Eye pokes have been a significant issue surrounding the UFC’s fighters for years. Some of the sport’s biggest fights, including the Stipe Miocic vs. Daniel Cormier trilogy, are plagued with multiple eye pokes and related infractions.
Despite the new, fresh feel of the UFC’s new gloves, Rogan thinks no progress has been made to deter eye pokes.
“These new gloves, they ain’t no better than the old gloves,” Rogan said. “Dudes are still getting poked in the eyes. They made a better glove, it is better padding. The best gloves are clearly not made yet, they need to cover the fingers…you don’t ever [overlap fingers], they don’t come into play, you always [make a fist] or [grip]. All you have to do is padding on the knuckles and a protective, thin leather layer that covers the hands that the fingers slip into…
“That eliminates 90% of all eye pokes, and doesn’t change everything with grappling and striking.”
Rogan has been a loyal endorser of gloves created by renowned head coach Trevor Wittman, who trains the likes of Justin Gaethje and Kamaru Usman. His gloves have been widely praised for covering the fingers entirely and addressing eye pokes head-on.
Rogan has been one of the voices of the Octagon for years, and he has a big influence over the UFC heads. Despite this, it appears the new gloves haven’t lived up to his hopefulness.
Never understood the Pride glove debate .
Johnny Bones could / would still manage distance with his fingers . Pride glove aint gonna stop him .
Unless the glove makes the hand form a fist at all times eye pokes are gonna happen . A glove that creates a fist kills off grappling .
I blame a lot of eye pokes on guys sparring in over sized boxing gloves and using them to push off the face of sparring partners . The habit carrys over to fights . I need to seperate / make distance . I`ll push on his face …
Weird that back in old days eye pokes weren’t much of the issues. Don’t remember hearing much of it…let’s just say…prior to the UFC 100 or in Strikeforce or WEC. I reckon it’s got a lot to do with fighters mindset as well
Enforce eye poke violations when they occur.
Thank you!
The need a stiff curve to the fingers so the default position is fingers bent where the metacarpals meet the phalanges (your punching knuckles)
This way you can extend your hand to grab and grapple, but the default position is a semi closed hand.
Bones would make the adjustment by extending his hand, palm out…with fingers directed towards your eyes.
This would almost immediately solve the problem
Agreed, especially now that ppl will know they can Intentionally poke their opponents eye, heck maybe twice without a point taken away.
And yeah Jones and others still would eyepoke opponents with the pride style gloves or maybe even Trevor Whitman’s ones too.
And if they did manage to combat it , fighters would try to use their toes to poke/scrape the eyes like Megan Anderson -Cat Z and Vitor-Bis
If you watched the press conference where they unveiled these “new” gloves, it was easy to see there was minimal changes. The designer told everyone that upon their research, eyepokes rarely occurred, only in a very small percentage of fights, then proclaimed that you couldn’t change/alter the gloves without it changing the sport…it was pretty ridiculous actually.
I think it is a marketing thing.
They want the fingers to be obvious so it LOOKS like MMA.
Visually distinguished from boxing/karate.
Maybe so
Eye poke = automatic point deduction
No more eye pokes
Imagine if there were DQ’s if u did the 2nd poke (even if it was a semi accident)
Ref reviews it and DQ’s them
He would have to angle his wrist differently and it would cost him a lot of range. They curve the fingers.
I’m sure a guy like Bones who relies on them so heavily will still find a way to get pokes in when better strikers get inside but it would be inconvenient for his style.
Accidental pokes on the other hand would be very rare.
2024 and UFC still hasn’t caught up.
We would never hear from Jones again lol.
Fuck joe rogan and his peanut butter mouth.