You may or may not have noticed, but there was something different about UFC 302. Right there, in each fighter’s fist? This was the newest iteration of UFC gloves.
This was a development that the UFC was very excited about. One day before UFC 300 in April, UFC officials gave a full presentation on the new gloves to the media gathered for the official weigh-in. We watched a video about the extensive research and development process for the new gloves. We received a brochure highlighting all the exciting innovations packed into those few grams of protective material. We have to deal with them and experience them. (Naturally, the first thing I did was hold out my fingers to see if it was possible to poke someone in the eye with it. Turns out, yes, of course it is.)
Then, at UFC 302 on Saturday, the new gloves finally made their UFC debut. Any hopes that they would reduce the frequency of eye pokes seemed dashed in the first fight of the night. At the end of the event, several fighters ended up with their fingers in their eyes. One thing that didn’t happen, however, was a single submission by knockout or technical knockout.
Obviously, it’s too early and the sample size is too small to attribute the latest stat to the new gloves. At the post-fight press conference, several fighters said they hope the new gloves will benefit stand-up attackerswith UFC welterweight Randy Brown calling them a “punch glove.”
“But it won’t do any good,” Brown added. “It really won’t do anything because of eye pokes.”
Randy Brown on the UFC’s new gloves: It’s definitely a puncher’s glove, but as far as the eye pokes, as you saw Saturday night, it’s not going to make much of a difference. #TheMMAHora pic.twitter.com/jvGNXIEWeI
– Jed I. Goodman © (@jedigoodman) June 3, 2024
And yes, it looks like eye pokes were the gloves’ main concern for everyone except the UFC. Perhaps the most notable thing about the introduction of the new glove in April was that the scourge of accidental (or otherwise) eye gouging was barely mentioned. Instead, designers seemed more concerned with cuts and comfort, as well as protecting the hands, without altering the padding in a way that could significantly decrease or increase knockout rates.
Not that these concerns aren’t important, of course… but what about people’s eyes? When I asked this question, the answer was that the designers hoped that increasing hand flexibility would reduce eye poking. The idea seemed to be that by making it easier for fighters to make fists with the new gloves, fighters would simply to choose keeping your hands closed more often, resulting in less eye poking.
One thing about these new gloves, reviewed by the first fighters to use them in the octagon, is that they make fist formation easier. Some noted that they felt less grip and forearm fatigue as they battled the stiffness of the glove. Others said it also made it easier to grab opponents in fight scenarios.
Again, all the best. But on the delicate subject of eyes, do we still hope that everything will work out? It’s important not only because it’s dangerous to one’s health and long-term career prospects for fighters to be attacking each other in the eyes, but also because it appears to have the ability to drastically alter the results of fights. UFC women’s bantamweight Lauren Murphy recently pointed out a statistic from a judging and refereeing course this noted a study where the fighter who got poked in the eye in the first round of a fight won the fight a whopping 74% of the time.
It’s a difficult problem to solve for a few reasons. You could argue that referees need to be more aggressive when taking points away from fighters who can’t keep their fingers off, and there is merit to that argument. But then, if you poke someone in the eye in the first round and it diminishes their vision enough to help you knock them out in the second, it’s still worth it.
For years, accidental eye pokes in UFC fights were all the stimulus commentator Joe Rogan needed to go on a rant about glove design. If only we had something more curved, he said, something that would make it harder to extend your fingers toward your opponent’s eyes. Then, what seemed like centuries later, a new glove design appeared. And this design made it easier to poke someone in the eye, while also ensuring greater hand comfort in the process.
That’s not to say the UFC’s new gloves are bad. UFC 302 fighters seem to like them overall, although some also said they didn’t really care one way or another. It seems strange to rework the gloves to address issues that no one else was really raising, while at the same time ignoring the big issue that still lingers right in front of our faces like an outstretched finger.
