Inadvertent eye pokes have been a lingering problem in the UFC. Many fights have been stopped because of such occurrences, most recently at UFC 276’s main card pairing between Sean O’Malley and Pedro Munhoz.
But this one took a turn for the worse. O’Malley accidentally poked Munhoz in the right eye with his outstretched fingers as he defended the attack, resulting in the latter being unable to continue to fight on. The bout was subsequently halted, resulting in a No Contest verdict at the 3:09 mark of round two.
A lot of people are pinning the blame on the UFC glove design, long-time analyst Joe Rogan being one of them, as he’s been calling for a change.