Everyone who watches the UFC today knows that fighters get a few free fouls per fight as a gift. Veteran MMA referee Herb Dean understands that everyone is fed up with it and is promising changes, but we don’t anticipate too much given some of his opinions on what constitutes an intentional foul.
Dean made an appearance on Dominick Cruz’s new Love & War podcast and said the issue of eye pokes and unpunished low blows will be discussed at the Association of Boxing Commissions annual conference this summer. There’s a lot to discuss, because at this point you have fighters like Derrick Lewis and Jon Jones boasting about drawing fouls as part of their game plan.
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“You heard Jon Jones come out and say, ‘I’m doing it on purpose,’” Cruz noted. “He literally did an interview where he said, ‘Yes, I do it on purpose.’”
Cruz and Dean were involved in the two fights between Jon Jones and Daniel Cormier and in Jones’ habit of sticking his hands in opponents’ faces, something that became illegal after a rule change. But it is illegal to stick your extended fingers in the direction of your opponent’s face. It is not illegal to put your hand on your opponent’s head. And if your fingers get in your eyes when you do that… well, whose fault is it?
“So I have my hand on your head, checking on it,” Dean explained. “Perfectly fine. But of course you don’t like that, you don’t want your head checked. And you start shaking your head wildly and suddenly you see a finger. You actually put your eye on a finger.”
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“Because yes, you’re doing the right thing, but the way you chose to do it, you didn’t choose to back down,” he continued. “You started turning your head and somehow a finger got close to your eye. So what I’m saying is that’s why we can’t make things automatic. That’s why there has to be discretion.”
Cruz argued that eye hits were so important that they should be treated harshly, even if some fighters lost points for “unintentional” eye hits.
“I think you can (take a point) right away, and that will minimize the eye pokes,” Cruz said. “At the end of the day, people use these things. Because it’s a fight to the death. All’s fair in love and war. It just is.”
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“How much money is at stake for this fight? Twenty million? Ten million? Yeah, I understand why Jon Jones punched this fool in the eye just to get a minute (rest). There’s too much money at stake. They hate each other too much. So if you get hit like that, now you get a point. Right? The whole fight changes.”
Dean promised to bring Cruz’s thoughts to the ABC meeting, and it would be cool to imagine a scenario where any significant hit to the eye results in a point deduction, so it’s up to the fighter to keep his damn hands closed. But this has been an ongoing problem for years and nothing has changed. As long as referees seem obsessed with giving the benefit of the doubt to those who commit fouls, there is no incentive for them to stop poking their opponents in the eyes.