Santiago Ponzinibbio defeated Gunnar Nelson on the main event at UFC Glasgow on Saturday night.
In the post fight press conference Nelson felt an eye poke had affected his vision although was quick to say it wasn’t an excuse and that he should have taken time to recover. His coach SBG Ireland’s John Kavanagh released video footage of several apparent eye pokes.
Doubt it was gameplan or intentional but try having depth perception after getting fingers shoved in eyes repeatedly https://t.co/66H6YrTT6T
— Coach Kavanagh (@John_Kavanagh) July 17, 2017
Ponzinibbio has answered back, “I went there to knock him out and thank God it went as expected, I won by knockout,” Ponzinibbio said, per MMA Fighting’s Guilherme Cruz. “If (the eye poke) happened, of course, it wasn’t intentional, but I watched the video again and didn’t see it. I don’t know. But it was a knockout with the right hand that I landed on him. The right hand hurt him and I finished with a precise jab.
“It doesn’t take anything away from the win. What he says doesn’t change anything. There’s a referee inside the Octagon looking at it, and he can stop the fight anytime he wants. The No. 8 in the world lasted 82 seconds. He’s 28, he’s versatile, a great athlete, one of the best in the division, has a bright future in the UFC, will be at the top, but it was an excellent win. (He) lasted 82 seconds.”
What do you think? Did the eye poke affect Nelson? Should they fight again? Could the referee have done better to notice the eye pokes? Should Nelson have brought eye poke to referees attention?
50 Responses
I was at the event and didn’t see it myself.
have u seen it slow mo Grant Clarke ? poked in both eyes no wonder he got kod cause his sight woulda been blurry man
Sean Mackie
Should be reviewed and perhaps changed to a no-contest.
I agree.
Who else loves MMA ?
Wicked bad eye pokes, he should have called it.
Gunnar should have made the ref aware.. but, 3 eye pokes in the space of a minute.. Ponzinibbio is a cheating bastard.
He watched the tape back and couldn’t see any eye pokes? Says everything.
As an argentinian I was a fan of him but now I think he’s just disrespectful.
To be honest watching it in real time I never noticed much wrong too. Nelson should have made an issue about it and gave referee a decision to make.
It’s actually up too the referee though at the end of the day. By that time Gunner was getting knocked out. I didn’t see it in real time but a referee should. Especially 4 separate incidents.
I was too drunk to notice it first time around ??
I guessed that haha, top atmosphere though.
Their is a third eye poke but I thought I’d add this little bit of cheating going on.
4 separate incidents and referee missed the lot.
Sorry Chris never noticed you had posted about it.
I hadn’t mate so don’t worry about it. I was just writing about it when Peter mentioned doing it. I just got word about other fights he’d done it in and I was watching them too add it to my article which I’ve found some previous. Nevermind mate, I’ll delete and start something fresh.
You could maybe do about ponzinibbio having previous and the evidence in the Nelson fight. Mine was more about his reply to it. I attached john Kavanagh Twitter video if it and a brief paragraph about it so wasn’t too in depth.
An another.
I was writing about the same but was watching other fights which he has done it before.