Nassourdine Imavov put on an outstanding performance in the UFC Paris main event, but it wasn’t without its blemishes.
At two points in the fight, Imavov hurt opponent Caio Borralho with eye pokes, leading to stern warnings from referee Marc Goddard—but no actual penalty on the scorecards for Imavov. The French middleweight contender went on to win a convincing unanimous decision and while a point deduction might not have affected the final result (Imavov won via scores of 50-45, 49-46, and 49-46),
the fouls still could have played a factor in how the action played out.
Former UFC champion Robert Whittaker gave his thoughts on the matter on his MMArcade Podcast, suggesting more needs to be done to prevent eye pokes.
“Eye pokes need to be addressed,” Whittaker said. “He got three warnings, didn’t he? The thing was, I remember the ref coming in, giving him the ‘hard warning’ and then Nassourdine goes straight out like this, like his hands are open straightaway. Fingers still pointing up. Instantly, though, guy made zero changes from that hard warning. I don’t know.
“Eye pokes are so hard, though, because when you get eye poked, it doesn’t matter whether it was hard or not, your vision blurs or doubles. It puts you off so much, so much, it’s so hard to deal with. I think the consequences need to be a little bit more dire, especially if it’s from that position, that scenario where the guy has his hand outstretched, he’s using it to gauge distance. It’s just like trying to move into, like, sticks, you know what I mean?”
Whittaker noted he’s not singling out Imavov, who has now won five straight fights and is a leading candidate to challenge middleweight champion Khamzat Chimaev in the near future.
Though he’s not sure what the solution is, Whittaker thinks being allowed to fight with fingers extended gives a striker a clear advantage when controlling distance.
“An eye poke can change a fight, easily,” Whittaker said. “But it’s not just him, there’s a lot of people. It needs to be addressed, definitely, because he was range-finding perfectly with those.
“I will say, regardless, congratulations to him. That was a stellar fight. I thought it was a good fight, good scrap.”
The popular assumption now is that Imavov has to wait for an upcoming bout between fellow contenders Reinier de Ridder and Anthony Hernandez to play out before the matchmakers decide who gets the spot for Chimaev’s first title defense. De Ridder and “Fluffy” are set to headline UFC Vancouver on Oct. 18.
As dominant as Imavov was on Saturday, he didn’t make an airtight case in Whittaker’s eyes.
“I don’t think that fight cemented that fight for him,” Whittaker said. “I think it definitely put him in the running, but that’s what it is. It’s a running now. I think ‘RDR’ and Fluffy are going to punch on and if they do something exceptional, they will jump the queue, I think.
“That’s nothing to take away from Imavov. That was a great fight. Caio didn’t give him any room. … That was a very high-level fight. Very high-level, high-stakes striking fight, it was really good to watch.”
