They need to institute VAR into the fights. They have an active production truck capable of doing on the fly replay, we are treated to it regularly. The moment an incident occurs where the referee feels that he is in a position to completely pause the action, it needs to be reviewed. I think this is needed badly for several reasons that have come up recently:
Vicente Lique drew a foul for being “poked in the eye”, but in reality, he got punched. Totally legal. Pause fight, review footage. Ask the fighter if he’s able to continue after seeing that it was a legal blow. If unable, award the opponent the victory.
Kevin Holland got iced in the dick and balls twice. The first strike was quite bad, but the second kick looked low and like it mostly clipped his inner thigh. Replaying this from memory, but it didn’t look like the kick connected flush and he drew the entire 5 minutes, then basically waved off a few seconds toward the end of the round himself. Maybe a testicle became herniated, no idea, but video replay on demand could have helped in that situation.
The Gane eye poke. There needs to be something done about the opened palm rangefinding shit. We know they’re not going to change gloves, so they need to find a way to ensure fighters aren’t jabbing with the fingers. It does suck to keep your fists clenched for so long, especially when the gloves are prohibited your hands to rest in their natural curve, but what can you do? Keith Peterson and Jason Herzog generally do a great job of telling fighters to keep their hands closed, but I feel the entire organization has become more relaxed in enforcing keeping the hand closed. Looking for more controversial decisions? It does create more cash, after all. Anyway, VAR would’ve shown that Gane was aggressing with an open palm toward Tom.
So what can be done then? Rules are explained in the back which tell the fighters where they are allowed to strike, and also to keep their hands closed. If you have your hand open and gouge someone’s eye, the action is immediately paused, and goes under review. If legit, summon the ringside doctor to assess the fighter and gauge severity - this will obviously be the difficult part. If the fighter is able to continue, deduct a point immediately. Unable to fight, DQ win. This offense will be recorded and held for a period of time. Similar to getting kicked in the nuts too (maybe with a bit more leniency here).
Second time it happens within a period of time, DQ and total purse forfeiture.
Third time? Contract termination. Liability at that point.