'Change to something better'… Former champion trashes UFC gloves after controversial Cejudo vs Song stoppage
02/23/2025 03:44 AM
The MMA leader’s gloves are a talking point once again following a controversial end to this past weekend’s Fight Night card.
Saturday night’s UFC headliner came to an early end after the third round when Henry Cejudo couldn’t continue.
Cejudo was poked in the eye several times by Song Yadong who won the fight via a technical decision after ‘Triple C’ had taken the full five-minute period to try and recover.
Whilst Yadong was winning the fight at that point regardless of the pokes, this has been a major issue inside the Octagon for some time now despite the rest of the Seattle card delivering a great night at the Climate Pledge Arena.
The introduction of a new UFC glove finally happened last year but the updated design had a short shelf life with the older model being officially reinstated last weekend at UFC Vegas 102.
Aljamain Sterling critiques UFC gloves after Henry Cejudo vs Song Yadong ends due to eye pokes
Henry Cejudo has received some harsh criticism for quitting in the fight when he could no longer continue against Song Yadong heading into the championship rounds.
However, a former opponent of his has placed the blame elsewhere by stating that a UFC fight should never get to this dilemma in the first place.
Aljamain Sterling successfully defended the bantamweight title against ‘Triple C’ at UFC 288 in 2023, beating the returning Cejudo via a split decision in New Jersey.
In his reflections on Seattle’s main event, he answered a fan question about the UFC gloves and whether they encourage fighters to extend their fingers which in turn, leads to more eye pokes.
Curving the gloves so that the fingers don’t point completely straight all the time was something that a lot of fight fans assumed would be a part of the redesigned apparel.
In Sterling’s response, he was clearly frustrated that after introducing new gloves only to go back to the old ones again, nothing is being done to try and address this issue at the highest level of the sport.
“Those stupid effing gloves don't curve! Idk why it's taking so long to change it to something better.”
Curved gloves seem to be the way forward even if they’re not perfect
When looking at the frequency of eye pokes in the UFC, there appears to be two potential fixes.
Referees could be more stern when enforcing that fighters don’t extend their fingers but it’s such a natural stance and range finding technique for so many athletes that this won’t be seamless.
The other call is to change the gloves, making them curved so that when the hand is in a resting position, the fingers aren’t outstretched towards the eyes of whoever is standing across the Octagon from them.
One issue with curved gloves if you have to ensure that they don’t limit anyone’s ability in a grappling exchange to achieve the grip that they want but at this point, it’s probably worth an experiment to try and eliminate some of the fight-altering eye pokes.
