MMA Thread

UFC 324
will air in its entirety on Paramount+ on Saturday.
Prelims begin at 5 p.m. ET/2 p.m. PT, while the main card kicks off at 9 p.m. ET/6 p.m. PT.

Justin Gaethje (155) vs. Paddy Pimblett (154)
Sean O'Malley (135.5) vs. Yadong Song (136)
Waldo Cortes-Acosta (262) vs. Derrick Lewis (263.5)
Rose Namajunas (125.5) vs. Natalia Silva (126)
Arnold Allen (145.5) vs. Jean Silva (146)
Deiveson Figueiredo (138.5)* vs. Umar Nurmagomedov (136)
Ateba Abega Gautier (186) vs. Andrey Pulyaev (186)
Modestas Bukauskas (204) vs. Nikita Krylov (205.5)
Charles Johnson (126) vs. Alex Perez (128.5)**
Alexander Hernandez (155.5) vs. Michael Johnson (156)
Denzel Freeman (257.5) vs. Josh Hokit (234.5)
Cameron Smotherman (135.5)*** vs. Ricky Turcios (136)
Adam Fugitt (171) vs. Ty Cole Miller (170)

* Figueiredo missed weight by 2.5 pounds and has been fined 25% of his purse.
** Perez missed weight by 2.5 pounds and has been fined 25% of his purse.
*** Smotherman collapsed after weighing in and the fight has been canceled.

Lol

ufc just needs to license trevor whitmans gloves and fix this endless eyepoke bullshit

I hope everybody in the ring gets staph for letting Justin fight.

Great main event

gaethje poked him twice, the thumb was the second one. and the ref missed it and should have taken a point like he said he would after the first warning.

and aspinall will be out god knows how long because piece of shit gane had to go knuckles deep. eye pokes fuck up way too many bouts.

Yeah, Justin is a pretty notorious eye poker. Makes sense since Whitman is a giant fucking piece of shit.

Can't even remember the last time a point was taken for a nut shot or an eye poke.

I think Cheick Kongo was the last point taken for a nutshot on a main card. And he had to really work for it-- in an era when reffing was much more strict about a number of things such as inactivity, not only fouls. Refs used to give constant verbal instruction when they saw a fighter begin to rake and go for pokes. Now they are less involved in the fight and sort of let it play out and ignore looking for things.

Too many times I've seen fighters have to call their own fouls. During the golden era, refs would stop a fight for a foul instantly. It might not lead to a point taken, but the fights got paused and they got a stern talking to which is more than we are getting today. Now fighters have to call their own nut shots and let the ref know whether they have been fouled. Just all ass backwards.

Reffing has taken a giant step back the last 10 years and isn't going to change overnight.

A poke should be automatic 1 point deduction, loss of % of purse and no fight bonuses.

from lowkickmma after tom got poked
"Since the beginning of 2024, only one fighter has been deducted a point for an eye poke in the UFC. In the entire history of the promotion, only 20 fights have occurred in which a fighter had a point deducted and the fight went to a decision. The UFC has had seven fights end in no contest due to eye pokes since 2005."

I have not found full stats anywhere, but have both that pokes happen every 10 or 14 fights.

stat from a 7 year old reddit post, in 100 fights that had eye pokes after UFC 100.
53 % of the pokers won
13% were no contest, draw or the other fighter also got poked.
34% poked fighter won.