UFC Vegas 103, The Morning After: Old Gloves, Old Problems?

03/02/2025 09:45 AM

Here's what you may have missed!

For the second time in two weeks, a UFC main event was disrupted by eye pokes.

Manel Kape was in the midst of perhaps his best performance yet in the main event of UFC Vegas 103 last night (March 1, 2025) against Asu Almabayev, an talented wrestler who hadn't lost a fight since 2017. Knocking out the Kazakh talent should be a star-making performance for "Starboy."

The problem is the knockout was marred by eye pokes. The first potential connection in round one — which bloodied Almabayev's eye — seemed to be a legal shot with a closed fist. The next two were more like Nate Diaz slaps, however, and it's easy to see how a finger or two brushed across a retina.

I don't blame Kape for surging forward, especially since the first "eye poke" brought about a pause in the action. He saw an advantage and pressed it, as a fighter should. It's on the referee to pay attention and spot with the fist is closed or the hand is open, and Mike Beltran definitely failed on that front last night.

This is also a failure on behalf of the UFC, a billion dollar company that cannot adjust or solve problems in any way.. Just last week, they announced officially that the "new gloves" were getting binned in favor of the old gloves ... which are notoriously bad for eye pokes. These old gloves force the fingers into an extended position rather than curve them naturally, meaning a resting hand is defaulted into an eye poke position.

Just like Song Yadong vs. Henry Cejudo last week, the fighter who was already winning clearly ended the contest early because of eye pokes. In both cases, UFC has opted to pretend the pokes aren't part of the narrative. UFC CEO Dana White has no intention of rebooking Cejudo vs. Yadong, it'll just be treated as a clean "Kung Fu Kid" win.

Similarly, Kape might receive a title shot off this win. At a minimum, he scored an extra $50k performance bonus despite the controversy. For the promotion, it's better to turn a blind eye to the foul and hope everyone forgets the details by the time Kape or Yadong fight again. In the case of "Starboy" especially, the promotion needs an interesting Flyweight contender more than it needs to care about eye pokes.

It's embarrassing though. If the new gloves suck and fighters hate them, why not try again with a new design? Forcing the referees to crack down harder on eye pokes is a complicated issue, but the promotion is completely in control of what its athletes fight in, and PRIDE solved the glove problem two decades ago.

Surely, the industry-leading promotion can do the same?

For complete UFC Vegas 103 results and play-by-play, click here.