The line we are used to hearing is, “out with the old, in with the new” but for Dana White and Co., the reverse seems to be applicable and it’s “old is gold” all the way. We’re talking about the new (now old) glove design, of course. The new gloves were introduced last year in April and the design saw success for just six months before being scrapped prior to UFC 309. Weren’t these new gloves supposed to represent the new meta of fighting gear in the promotion? Why did they get scrapped after just half a year of being introduced? And did Joe Rogan have anything to do with the new design being recalled?

Well, for starters, fighters complained that the new design was uncomfortable for them. On top of that, Dana White’s favorite heavyweight king Jon Jones did not like these new additions at all. Feedback from fighters included issues with comfort, fit, and performance. The USP of these new gloves was to reduce the incidence of eye pokes, but it seems several other problems cropped up in its place.

Even UFC color commentator Joe Rogan said that he preferred the old gloves. So with all this in mind, Dana White decided to bring back the old gloves again. UFC play-by-play man John Gooden’s remarks were posted by MMA Orbit on X and they said, “John Gooden just announced that the old UFC gloves are permanently back, starting with #UFCVegas102 tonight.”

“There were a lot of complaints,” White told MMA Fighting on SBN about the new gloves this past November. “We created these gloves to stop eye pokes and we had good intentions with them. They didn’t work out. People weren’t happy with them.” The new glove design was introduced to prevent eye pokes and hand fractures. However, it contributed to the huge fall in knockout rates by almost 22.9 percent. Then there’s Jonny ‘Bones’, of course, who was not happy with the design, to which Dana White decided to revert to the old gloves for UFC 309.

Jon Jones attempted to break into the new gloves before his UFC 309 fight against Stipe Miocic and said that it was uncomfortable. Even Joe Rogan said that Dana White was not successful with the new design. He discussed one of his pet peeves about the new gloves in JRE #161 saying, “The other thing that they need to do and I think this could be done, is cover the tips of the fingers.”

So were the new gloves really that bad that they had to be replaced by the old design?  Let’s see the tirade that Joe Rogan unleashed on this matter.

Joe Rogan the catalyst who solved the UFC gloves issue

On a previous edition of The Joe Rogan Experience, the UFC color commentator spoke to Jiri Prochazka aka ‘The Czech Samurai’, and discussed the incessant eye pokes that happened in Prochazka’s fight against Jamahal Hill. The duo had ended up poking each other in the eye in the middle of the fight and needed some time off to recover in the Octagon.

A jab in the eye is a painful inconvenience during a fight especially when you need your eyes to anticipate your opponent’s moves. Let’s be real—no one wants to be poked in the eye. This is a major issue in fights and was something that Rogan revealed that he would confide with Dana White.

What was his solution? Well, the JRE host believed that these new gloves should have the fingers covered as well. Rather than being fingerless gloves, they should be gloves that have every part of the hand covered. He said, “Another thing that I think they should do—and I’m going to talk to Dana about this this week—is cover the fingers. There’s no reason to have these fingers exposed. It doesn’t help anything. It doesn’t help grappling. You never grapple like this, right? (Interlocks his fingers) You never use the fingers; nobody does. You do this (showing the S grip) or you do this (the Gokor grip), or you do different things with your hands, but your fingers always close.”

Interestingly Rogan did have a solution for the new gloves and suggested the design by Trevor Wittman. But why did UFC avoid that design? Unfortunately and unsurprisingly because of money. Wittmay wanted a huge sum of money for the gloves he designed. And it seems like the UFC tried to make a fair deal and Rogan even spoke to the UFC boss about the same. He insisted that Wittman’s glove design was the best because they were designed to keep the hands curled which would prevent eye pokes.

Do you think that the UFC not using Trevor Wittman’s design was a missed opportunity? Also, what do you think about the old gloves being brought back in place of the ones introduced last year? Let us know in the comments down below.