Gustafsson-Texeira Eye Poke

Once again… it seems like a weekly segment can be written about fouls and their mishandling in the world of MMA these days.

On Sunday night, Stockholm time, a potentially very intriguing fight between Alexander Gustafsson and Glover Texeira took place. Both have been at the top of the light heavyweight division for  a long time, and this was one of the few fights between the very best in that division which had yet to be made. So, apart from the fact that they both already fought for the title and lost, it was a very interesting fight.

And the fight indeed started quite interestingly. Unfortunately, in the middle of the very first round Gustafsson apparently poked Texeira in the eye. Marc Goddard stopped the action, called in the doctor and told Texeira emphatically that he doesn’t have any time to recover and that he needs to decide immediately whether he can continue to fight or not.

Fighters are usually very reluctant to say they cannot fight. They prepare for months for these fights, their livelihood depends on these fights and it’s very important for fighters to have success in their careers to always feel like they can overcome any adversity. Plus, they usually get a lot of scrutiny from fans and promotions alike for quitting mid-fight. So while it may be the smart move for a fighter to quit for any reason that would compromise his fighting ability, most times fighters try to push through and keep fighting.

Which is good for us, the fans, who don’t want to see the fight stopped. But at the same time we also don’t want to see fighters break the rules, potentially ruining the fight. Texeira, as expected, said he could continue fighting, and the fight continued with almost no time in which he could recuperate from a foul that was committed against him.

Two weeks ago I explained how Eddie Alvarez benefited from committing a foul against Dustin Poirier, because of Herb Dean’s response to it. Marc Goddard’s handling of the foul this time had the same effect. Gustafsson committed a foul which reduced Texeira’s ability to fight. He was obviously affected significantly following the eye poke, hardly able to open his eye and squinting badly. The tide started turning against him from that point, and he told his corner he can’t see from that eye after the first round. I think it would be safe to say that it affected his performance significantly for the first two rounds, in which he received a lot of damage, which obviously affected him greatly for the rest of the fight.

So Gustafsson committed a foul which hurt Texeira significantly, Texeira tried to soldier on, doing the “right thing”, the thing we all hoped he would do, and said he would continue to fight. But then, not only did he not get any time to recuperate, Gustafsson was also not penalized in any way for the foul. He was just warned – what good does that do? Texeira’s performance was severely affected by the incident and he ended up losing the fight. There is a good chance that the reason was because of the effects of the foul, but we can’t know this with any certainty.

So in the last two months, there were four incidents involving potential fouls in important UFC fights and all four time those incidents were not handled properly. More importantly, at least in three of those cases the offending fighter was the one who benefited from the situation. It becomes less and less surprising that there are so many rule violations in MMA, which often ruin important fights. I’m not suggesting those fighters are cheaters. Most are not committing those fouls on purpose, but when there is no penalty for committing a foul, and when fighters ultimately benefit from doing it, there is no motivation for them to avoid doing it.

And once again, the real problem is that there was no big outcry about the handling of the situation. Once again I could hardly find anyone complaining about it except for Texeira himself. Nobody complained that Texeira didn’t get time to recover. Nobody complained that Gustafsson didn’t get penalized. It is as if it’s just fine for fouls to determine the outcome of fights instead of fighting within the rules. As if it’s just fine that fighters learn it’s better to disregard the rules, rather than follow them..

According to Marc Goddard, he was following the rules when he didn’t give Texeira time to recover. That doesn’t change anything, of course. It just means that Goddard is not to blame. I fail to see the logic behind this rule. Isn’t it obvious that a few minutes would have made all the difference in the world for Texeira in the situation? Don’t we all know that fighters tend to choose to continue fighting even when their abilities are compromised due to fouls committed against them?

It might not always be easy to know what should be done in such situations. But it’s pretty easy to know what shouldn’t be done. When a fighter’s ability is diminished due to a foul committed against him, obviously some measures should be taken to try to compensate him for that. Doing absolutely nothing and letting the fight continue as if nothing happened just can’t be the right way to go.