Could we finally be approaching a miraculous time where eye pokes in MMA are punished swiftly and without mercy? Following a recent gathering of multiple MMA commission heads and officials, we might.
The
2026 Combat Sports Officials Summit went down from January 9th to 11th in Las Vegas, hosted by legendary referee “Big” John McCarthy. The event was an opportunity for officials from all corners of combat sports from boxing to MMA to bare knuckle to come together and learn from each other. They also took the time to address eye pokes in MMA, which has been an issue for years but may finally have enough momentum to get dealt with following multiple high profile incidents.
“Extended fingers and eye-pokes,” McCarthy told the assembled referees (via Uncrowned’s Ben Fowlkes). “It’s a fricking problem. And it’s your fault.”
Collectively, the referees in attendance agree that they haven’t been penalizing fouls the way they should, especially eye pokes. At this point it’s well-known that everyone gets a few free fouls before a stern warning gets issued. With this level of laissez-faire reffing in play, it would almost be foolish for fighters to NOT foul their opponents.
But what to do about it? Referees have been accused of shrinking away from aggressively taking points because a single point in a three round fight creates such a massive shift in outcome. And the rules allow them to forgive fighters that ‘unintentionally’ eye-poke their opponents. That may be coming to a end, according to California Athletic Commission head Andy Foster.
“I think one of the things you may see coming out of the rules committee this cycle is we’re going to get rid of this intentional vs. unintentional foul language,” Foster told Uncrowned. “It’s very rare that you see someone just come out with a foul on purpose and intentionally try to do something egregious to harm their opponent. Intent is not the point. The fact is the foul happened and we’ve got to do something about it. So we’re looking to get rid of that language, because it’s antiquated.”
“It’s not what’s actually happening and we’ve got to adapt.”
Ten years ago, commissions changed the rules to bar fighters from extending their fingers outward towards their opponents’ face (aka ‘the Jon Jones technique’). And while that resulted in some more warnings from refs, it didn’t stop pokes from continuing to happen.
The only thing that’s going to get fighters’ hands under control is a fear of punishment, which doesn’t exist under the current rules. Will the rule change Foster mentioned work? Only if referees widely enforce it, and we’re not particularly hopeful on that front.
