Pointing Out Dana White & Co.’s Failure, Joe Rogan Drops an Ingenious Solution to Prevent Eye Pokes During Fights Using New UFC Gloves

Dana White and Co., in order to solve the scourge of eye pokes in the UFC, introduced new gloves earlier this year. These new gloves, named 3EIGHT and 5EIGHT have curved fingerholes to prevent fighters from straightening their fingers, in hopes that it would solve the eye-poke issues.

However, the move hasn’t worked as intended, with fighters like Sean Strickland and Islam Makhachev having openly criticized the new gloves. Also critical of the new design in Joe Rogan, who has long been advocating a simple yet ingenious move to solve the issues, which he reiterated in a podcast episode with UFC light heavyweight star Khalil Rountree.

Joe Rogan thinks only one thing can prevent eye pokes in the UFC

Rogan and Rountree were discussing what they felt should be changed in the UFC on episode #161 of the JRE MMA show. This, of course, brought Rogan to one of his pet peeves- the UFC glove design. After Rountree admitted that the new gloves hadn’t done much to mitigate the scourge of eye pokes in the UFC, Rogan suggested a simple fix.

The UFC commentator told ‘War Horse’ that the easiest way to prevent eye pokes would be to have the fighters’ fingers covered by a thin layer of leather. Continuing on the theme of the inadequacy of the latest UFC gloves, Rogan felt that it was a shame the UFC couldn’t come to a deal with Trevor Whittman, whose ONX MMA gloves the podcast host was a big fan of, and felt were better than the Las Vegas-based promotion’s gloves.

“The other thing that they need to do and I really think this could be done, is cover the tips of the fingers. There’s no reason why these fingers need to be exposed… I don’t get it when they said they were going to have new gloves, they seem real similar to [the old gloves to] me. Trevor Whitman in my opinion has the best gloves: the Onx,” Rogan told Rountree.

“Yeah I think they’re the best MMA gloves and they had some sort of negotiations with Trevor, but he wanted more money than they were willing to give… I think it should be like the Trevor Whitman gloves, but where the fingertips are I think you cover it with just a piece of leather,” he added. And the gloves weren’t the only thing Rogan and Rountree agreed needed changing.

Rogan thinks Dana White and Co. should do away with win bonus

Rogan felt that the pay structure of the UFC. Fighter pay has two main parts- show money (which is the guaranteed amount fighters get for making weight and showing up to the fight); and win bonus (which as the name suggests, a fighter gets only if they win). Both win and show money are of the same amount and lead to a situation where a fighter gets only half their purse if they should lose the fight.

Rogan was very critical of this system and felt that this pay structure must feel even worse if a fighter loses a bad decision or a close split decision. This is why he was in favor of changing it so that fighters get the full purse guaranteed regardless of the result.

“I don’t like the win bonus thing… like especially with bad decisions. Like [you get] bad decisions and then like you get half your money. Especially [in case of] split decision, you get [half] your paycheck,” Rogan said, in wholehearted agreement with Rountree. What are your thoughts on Joe Rogan’s suggestions?