The gloves of the MMA leader are again a talk point after a controversial end of the Fight Night card this weekend.
The UFC headliner on Saturday evening came early after the third round when Henry Cejudo could not continue.
Cejudo was punctured several times by Song Yadong who won the fight through a technical decision after 'Triple C' had taken the full period of five minutes to try to recover.
While Yadong won the fight at that time, regardless of poking, this has been a big problem in the Octagon for a while, despite the rest of the Seattle card that yielded a great evening in the Climate Plede 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 that was officially recovered at UFC Vegas 102 last weekend.
Aljamain Sterling Critiques UFC gloves after Henry Cejudo vs Song Yadong ends because of eye products
Henry Cejudo received some harsh criticism for stopping in the fight when he could no longer continue against Song Yadong on his way to the championship rounds.
A former opponent of him, however, has placed the debt elsewhere by stating that a UFC fight should never come to this dilemma in the first place.
Aljamain Sterling successfully defended the Bantamweight title against 'Triple C' on UFC 288 in 2023 and defeated the recurring Cejudo through a split decision in New Jersey.
In his reflections on the Seattle main event, he answered a fan question about the UFC gloves and whether they encourage hunters to expand their fingers, which in turn leads to more eye pokes.
The gloves bent so that the fingers do not immediately point directly directly directly, was something that many fight fans assumed to be part of the redesigned clothing.
In Sterling's answer, he was clearly frustrated that after introducing new gloves only to go back to the old one, nothing is done to try to tackle this problem at the highest level of sport.
“Those stupid plain gloves don't curve! Idk why it takes so long to turn it into something better. “
Curved gloves seem to be ahead, even if they are not perfect
When you look at the frequency of eye products in the UFC, there seem to be two potential fixes.
Referees can be stricter when maintaining that hunters do not expand their fingers, but it is such a natural attitude and finding a range for so many athletes that this will not be seamless.
The other call is to change the gloves, so that they are bent, so that when the hand is in a rest position, the fingers are not stretched in the direction of the eyes of those who stand over the octagon of them.
A problem with curved gloves if you have to make sure they limit anyone in a grip exchange to reach the grip they want, but at the moment it is probably worth an experiment to try to eliminate part of the fight-changing eye .
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