UFC Fight Night 81 in Boston provided plenty of talking points, but the image of the night undoubtedly came from the heavyweight bout between Travis Browne and Matt Mitrione.
During the fight, two pokes to the right eye of Mitrione from Browne left him with severe swelling as he struggled to keep going despite the fact that his eye had clearly closed over.
Mitrione's injury came as a double blow as he suffered defeat in the match, which could have been his last in the UFC given that he was out of contract as of the end of the fight.
Image: Gregory Payan / AP/Press Association Images
A photo posted by Al Powers (@powersimagery) on
Mitrione also tweeted out an image of the injury, saying that he had broken the orbital floor of his eye socket, as well as suffered an injury to his shoulder in the course of the fight.
He referenced the fact that there had been eye pokes from Browne, and that he believed he wouldn't have suffered either of the injuries if his eye hadn't been targeted.
Broken orbital floor. This and the shoulder happened after the 2nd eye poke. I don't think they would've happened pic.twitter.com/wFn1NC3j5Y
— Matt Mitrione (@mattmitrione) January 18, 2016
I'm sorry I lost tonight. If this was my last fight, I wanted to go out on my shield. The eye pokes had an effect but things happen
— Matt Mitrione (@mattmitrione) January 18, 2016
Speaking after the fight, Browne was in no mood to deal with questions about the eye pokes, saying "I don't think it was something that a point needed to be taken away [for]".
Browne turned the tables on a reporter when asked about the "controversy" surounding the eyepokes, saying that there was unlikely to be a rematch, and that "I don't understand the controversy".
Via Balls.ie
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