This week the Association of Ringside Physicians had their position statement on eye injuries in combat sports published in the Clinical Journal of Sports Medicine.
The paper is titled “Eye Conditions: Position Statement of the Association of Ringside Physicians” and can be found here.
Among the various recommendations was the call for MMA gloves to be curved. The doctors noted quite bluntly that “Eye injury prevention measures should include curved-finger mixed martial arts (MMA) glove design to reduce eye pokes,“
This recommendation is based on data that such gloves statistically significantly lower eye poke rates with the paper noting as follows:
“A UFC Vegas 21 MMA main event ended in a no contest when 1 fighter sustained an eye poke injury that left him unable to continue fighting. Afterward there was increased attention to the types of gloves used in MMA. Preliminary data presented at the ARP’s annual conference in 2022 looked at eye poke incidence rate between the 3 most common glove types (UFC, Bellator, and PFL) and found eye poke incidence with Bellator gloves was statistically significantly lower than both UFC and PFL gloves at the time (P = 0.3 and P = 0.2 respectively)...it is safe to assume that eye pokes will continue to occur if fingers are exposed, and further research should be done on glove types that will further reduce the risk of injury.”
Combat Sports Law 