Ex-UFC referee gets brutally honest about Jon Jones' role in the eye-poke rule, reveals how past mistakes set bad precedent for penalization
Jon Jones was responsible for the eye poke rule being established in mixed martial arts, according to the very individual who wrote the rule on it. On episode 551 of Weighing In, John McCarthy and Josh Thomson discussed some of the big happenings from UFC Seattle, including the controversial eye poke scenario in the Henry Cejudo vs. Song Yadong headliner.
The former Strikeforce lightweight champion indicated that it bugged him to see Yadong put his hands wide open once again after action resumed following the poke. After admitting to making the same mistakes during his refereeing tenure with how to handle eye poke scenarios and even stating he brought up that rule as well writing it, McCarthy said:
"They put it into the unified rules. It was, I'm being honest, it was Jon Jones that made the reason for it because of how [and] what he used to do. It's normal for a fighter to want to fight with open hands. But those hands have to be with the fingers kind of up if you want to do it. Well tell the fighter you can fight with your hands up or close your hand, ok."
"Don't point your fingers out. As soon as the rule was initiated, one of my first fights that I did that went under that rule was Josh Koshcheck's last fight. It was in Bellator... Josh was doing it. I was that close to taking a point from him... He was already not doing well in the fight... I told myself, man, like I should have taken a point."
Check out John McCarthy's commentary regarding referee conduct below (31:34):
Jon Jones vs. Tom Aspinall announcement seems close, according to a UFC analyst
Jon Jones and Tom Aspinall being booked into a heavyweight title unification bout is on the minds of many. UFC analyst and former UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping believes an announcement for the massive bout is soon to come, especially if the rumblings of Jon Jones vs. Tom Aspinall taking place during the International Fight Week are true.
Jones has not appeared keen on a fight with Aspinall, as he seems to favour the box office pull that someone like Alex Pereira would be able to bring. Bisping also expressed concerns about the lack of updates regarding the heavyweight championship unification bout. On his personal YouTube channel, Bisping said:
"What's going on with that one? We've got to get an announcement on Tom vs. Jones pretty soon. I would say if they're going to fight on International Fight Week or something like that, they've got to announce it. They've got to start the training camps, and the fact they haven't is giving me cause for concern."
Check out Michael Bisping's comments below (8:47):