Glover Teixeira has an issue with how eye pokes are handled in mixed martial arts.
Teixeira is set to take on Misha Cirkunov tonight (Dec. 16) inside the Bell MTS Place in Winnipeg, Canada. It’ll be featured on the main card of UFC on FOX 26.
While millions will be watching the bout on FOX’s main channel, Teixeira has been under the bright lights before. He fell short in a title bout to Jon Jones back in April 2014. He also had a high profile bout against Alexander Gustafsson back in May. He was knocked out in the fifth round.
A common theme with both those bouts were the eye pokes. Teixeira received numerous eye pokes in both bouts. Speaking to MMAFighting.com, Teixeira joked about protecting his eyes:
“The lessons of the Gustafsson fight, the first one is to get an eye-patch so I don’t get poked in the eye like I am all the time, getting screwed every time. … I don’t know how, but thank God I have no eye problems. It’s Jon Jones (poking me in the eye) five times. … My fighting style is to move forward all the time and these guys want to run and put their hands forward. I don’t believe it’s on purpose, but it’s my style to move forward and they end up putting their hands open, and ends up hitting the eye.”
He went on to call for stiffer consequences as a result of eye pokes.
“But what I’ve learned is to stay calm. This is not boxing. I always go for the knockout, I always go for the finish, to put on a beautiful fight, a quick win to excite the fans, but unfortunately it’s hard to do this in this sport because the guys leave their hands open and there’s no punishment for no one. I have to adjust my game, study my opponents, how to get in and catch them soon, and that’s what I did. I know they will do that, leave their hands open in my face, so I have to remain calm and catch them in the perfect time.”
