August 4th was a tough night for new UFC featherweight fighter Matt Sayles. Not only did the Tuesday Night Contender alumn lose his fight against Sheymon Moraes 29-28 on all three judges’ scorecards, he also took four eye pokes during the bout.
Of course, this is MMA, so do you even have to ask whether the referee punished Moraes for those pokes? No you don’t, because of course the ref didn’t. And now Sayles is undergoing laser eye surgery to repair a torn retina. Via ESPN+’s Ariel & The Bad Guy:
update from today’s show:
Matt Sayles suffered a torn retina as a result of the multiple eye pokes suffered in his loss to Sheymon Moraes at UFC 227, according to his team. He’s undergoing laser eye surgery tomorrow. Worth noting, no points were deducted during the fight. pic.twitter.com/E1tvOdaf2Y
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) August 8, 2018
Sayles knocked out Yazan Hajeh just 1:57 into their fight on the second season of Dana White’s Tuesday Night Contender Series and was quickly added to the UFC 227 less than two months later. Now he’ll have to take some time off to let the retina in his right eye heal.
Once again we have to wonder how long it’ll be until something even more serious than a torn retina is suffered by a fighter. As with issues like extreme weight cutting, it seems like a ticking time bomb waiting to go off. And who can we blame? Responsibility falls to the patchwork of state commissions, so getting one to fix things isn’t about to fix it everywhere.
As they say, it’s all fun and games until someone loses an eye. Let’s hope it doesn’t take something that severe for eye pokes to finally start being punished.