With one of the biggest UFC events ever happening this coming Saturday, the promotion has announced they will launch a ‘new UFC glove presentation’, with fans now speculating what the change could be.
The UFC may finally be ready to rectify one of the biggest issues that plague the fights regularly.
Even as recently as March 31st, UFC Atlantic City left a bad taste as two fights ended unceremoniously due to ‘accidental’ eye-pokes.
Nursulton Ruziboev defeated Sedriques Dumas in the first round of their middleweight bout, but after the fight, replays showed that the finishing sequence began with an eye-poke by Ruziboev. Despite that, the result was not overturned.
Just a few fights later, Chris Weidman controversially returned to the win column with a finish over Bruno Silva. Again, the replays showed that Weidman hit Silva with multiple eye-pokes which is what resulted in Silva going down to the ground.
That result was then overturned from a TKO win to a decision win for Weidman.
The UFC announce ‘New UFC Glove Launch presentation on Friday, April 12th
In an email sent out to the media, the UFC announced that on Friday April 12th, following the UFC 300 official weigh-ins, they will launch a ‘New UFC Glove’.
This has resulted in the MMA community speculating what the change could be.
The promotion seemingly changed the design of the gloves before UFC 287 last year, as in a UFC embedded episode, UFC welterweight Gilbert Burns displayed a different design, stating that it was more difficult to straighten the finger.
Despite that, it is unclear if the UFC continued using that design.
Fans react to possible glove change
Although there is optimism that the change will be to the design of the glove and to prevent eye-pokes, there is also some skepticism that it’ll simply be the same glove with a sponsor added to it.
The UFC glove is one of the only pieces of equipment yet to be covered by a sponsor so there is a possibility that this could be the change.
@FredGarvinReal commented: “Knowing the UFC it will probably have four sponsors on the glove.
Following Chris Weidman’s eye-poke victory a few weeks ago, UFC lightweight Justin Gaethje commented on the UFC’s decision to not change the design, saying: “Too bad the UFC doesn’t want to change those s*** gloves.”
Gaethje’s head coach, Trevor Wittman, has his own design of MMA glove and has previously pitched his product to the UFC, but they decided to stick with their own design. Fans are hopeful that the promotion has now decided to switch to Wittman’s design.
Cage Warriors is a promotion that sports a different design of glove, but the complaints have been that it’s harder to grapple with that specific design. Pride also used a similar design of glove, which fans have called to return.