Sean Strickland receives praise from referee for lack of eye pokes in fights

UFC veteran Sean Strickland has received praise from referee Herb Dean in regards to the ongoing conversation about eye pokes in the sport.

For the longest time, Sean Strickland has been viewed as a ‘bad guy’ in the world of mixed martial arts – mainly because he comes out with so many controversial statements on such a regular basis. In equal measure, he’s also a former UFC middleweight champion, and he has quite a resume in the sport, especially in the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

Sean Strickland is an enigma in MMA and it’ll be interesting to see what he does next, but in terms of his fight style, he certainly likes to keep things standing as opposed to going to the ground. Naturally, that means he is often involved in lots of striking exchanges during his fights.

In the midst of the debate regarding the prevelance of eye pokes in the sport, referee Herb Dean had the following to say about Sean Strickland in a recent interview.

Herb Dean praises Sean Strickland for his approach to fights

“So far, what we’re talking about is, we’ve made rules,” Dean said. “So we made a rule it’s a foul to extend the fingers towards the eyes. That’s the rule we’ve already had in place. So that rule has been there, but we haven’t been enforcing it. So we’re going to move forward on that.

“The other thing is writing some more guidelines for exactly what is the foul,” Dean explained. “That last foul, the one with Aspinall, I think the fingers were up, right? So we can agree the fingers were up… so we might have to change that, and also, because there’s a lot of times even when you’re pawing… when you get to the end of your reach, automatic, your fingers start to come down as you’re reaching out. …

“When Sean Strickland fights, I know he has a bad boy image, I’m not trying to make him a teacher’s pet. But, man, he’s my favorite when I see him come out [with his fingers closed], and he’s parrying [all around]. I don’t have to worry about the fingers.”

Quotes via MMA Fighting