Dana White’s Billion-Dollar Worth UFC Faces Fan Backlash Over Subpar Glove Quality Compared to Smaller Promotion

Dana White and the UFC are facing a backlash from the fans for their gloves. At UFC Atlantic City, a controversy erupted when Chris Weidman beat Bruno Silva. The 39-year-old did so by eye-poking his opponent twice in a row, which sent the Brazilian tumbling down to the floor and the referee called a stop to the contest. Following this fight, fans on Reddit called for the organization to change their gloves to prevent any eye-poking from happening.

Eye-Poking is an illegal move in the UFC. The act of eye-poking can get fighters disqualified and lead to them losing the fight. Before each fight, the referees remind the fighters to keep their fingers tucked in at all times.

However, other organizations have found better ways to prevent eye-poking, starting from the glove itself. Fans on Reddit criticized the UFC for not having better gloves despite having a net worth of $12.3 Billion.

Time for new gloves
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One of the users crticized the UFC in a funny way.

“UFC likes the eye pokes”

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One Fan stated that this was a Dana White being hungry for money problem.

“Yeah this is a Dana being a money hungry a*shole issue like a lot of the issues in mma lol”

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Another user came up with a hilarious solution for eye-pokes.

“Fighter goggles. Perfect solution plus the endless memes it would produce.”

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One user called out the UFC president for never admitting he is wrong.

“Dana will never admit anything other than a UFC idea is any good.”

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Another fan recalled Dana White saying something about new gloves.

“Years ago Dana claimed the UFC was designing new gloves. I’m genuinely interested why we’re settling with the gloves introduced by Tank Abbot.”

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Not only the fans, but even UFC fighters are not a big fans of the gloves. Following the UFC Atlantic City controversy, BMF champion Justin Gaethje tweeted out trashing the gloves.

Justin Gaethje trashes UFC gloves following UFC Atlantic City controversy

Eye-poking is not a new problem for the UFC. It has always been around, but the organization has not actively done anything to change the gloves so the fighters’ fingers don’t stick out. Justin Gaethje voiced his opinion on the UFC gloves following UFC Atlantic City. Speaking on the matter, the BMF champion opined,

“Too bad UFC don’t want to change those s*it gloves.”

Too bad UFC don’t want to change those shit gloves.

— Justin Gaethje (@Justin_Gaethje) March 31, 2024

When one fan in the comments wondered why the UFC does not use Trevor Wittman’s gloves, Gaethje responded to him saying, it wasn’t the organization’s idea so they would not use it. Gaethje also went on to state all the problems with the current gloves. He claims they force the hand into a bad position when left relaxed, cut the circulation off to the fingers, and put a lot of pressure on the hand. Thus, with controversies doing the rounds, it will now be interesting to see whether Dana White & co. will ultimately make the change or not.