Things have gone from bad to worse for middleweight contender Ihor Potieria, who racked up another loss at UFC 307. While it was a pretty close encounter, his opponent, Cesar Almeida, happened to have broken a few rules when he repeatedly poked him in his eyes, which went unwarned by the referee. That certainly didn’t make Dana White a happy man, as reports claim that the 55-year-old took some drastic measures following that incident.

Dave Seljestad has been calling fights in the middle of the cage for years now, a veteran referee. Having officiated a total of 64 professional MMA bouts, he hasn’t made too many serious errors before that would make fans call him out on social media like they usually do. But this time, things got very serious as Cesar Almedia, who registered a unanimous decision win, appeared to have poked Ihor Potieria almost half a dozen times during the fight.

Surprisingly, Dave Seljestad didn’t see anything wrong with Almeida’s eye pokes, and the fight went through all three rounds. According to veteran journalist Kevin Iole, Dana White took swift action and relieved Seljestad from his work for the night and ushered him out of the UFC 307 PPV event in Salt Lake City. This isn’t a new move from the UFC CEO because he did something similar at UFC 305 when she took a judge off his assignment.

The eye pokes were very visible during the fight, and Cesar Almeida addressed those charges in the post-fight interview. In a shocking statement, the Brazilian star appeared to have had no issues with the referee, letting him go unwarned because he believes eye pokes are common in this combat sports discipline. “This is normal. This is MMA… The fans say this [sound off about the eye pokes] but in the cage, it’s very hard,” Cesar Almedia told the media. Meanwhile, the fans were still not happy with the way things went down, prompting them to share some stern reactions about the current state of MMA fights.

Are eye pokes getting normal in MMA? Fans react as Dana White takes strict measures

Even though reports have come in that Dana White sent the referee home after the Potieria vs Almedia fight, fans are starting to believe that certain illegal moves have gone unnoticed for too long. There are always such incidents occurring in every other event, as one fan concluded, “Nut shots and eye pokes are staples of MMA now because refs won’t do their jobs and take a point.” Meanwhile, some fans didn’t seem to have any problems with Cesar Almeida’s mistake.

Given that Cesar Almeida explained how things are difficult to control inside the cage, many believe that he gave a sincere reply to the media about poking Ihor Potieira in the eye. Hence, the sole blame has been placed on the referee, as another fan added, “He’s being a good sport about it. But that was a horrendous display of reffing. Very unprofessional,” validating Dana White’s decision to relieve Dave Seljestad from his duties for the night.

“It ain’t his fault the ref was terrible. He should have had a deducted point and if he lost the fight because of it we’d say “Well, what can you do, MMA has rules and according to those rules, you lost…this is normal, this is MMA,” another fan added. Some fans even sounded off on the media for asking Cesar Almeida about the eye pokes. Claiming that “Why would he care? He won lol,” fans wanted to hear what the referee had to say about not warning the Brazilian even once during the entire fight. Meanwhile, there were also those who wanted Dana White to take serious steps against Almeida and “cut him” from the roster.

The cries for Dana White to release Cesar Almedia appeared to get louder from one section of the UFC fan base as they didn’t seem to like his response to the eye pokes in the post-fight interview. Some of those fans added, “Well because he helped you win you f—— h–. I hope they cut this dude,” and, “It shouldn’t be normal. That’s one of the problems with MMA,” echoing that sentiment.

This isn’t the first time fans have witnessed eye pokes and don’t look like it will be the last of it if serious measures aren’t taken against such illegal moves. However, we would love to hear what you have to say about this situation and let us know in the comments down below.