Michael Bisping was left thoroughly upset following Henry Cejudo’s defeat to Song Yadong at UFC Seattle.
Cejudo returned to the UFC on Saturday, almost a year after his last fight, with hopes of securing another title shot.
The former UFC champion is one of only four fighters to have held two titles simultaneously, having claimed the bantamweight title in 2019 alongside his flyweight belt.
However, Cejudo’s ambitions of winning gold once again were quickly shattered when a nasty double eye poke from Yadong prevented him from continuing.
The fight was then stopped at the beginning of round four and Yadong was handed a technical decision victory.
Bisping, who lost an eye from an injury sustained during his UFC career, was on commentary for the bout and initially thought Cejudo was ‘milking’ the injury.
However, his perspective changed quickly when he realised the severity of it as Cejudo told his team that he could no longer see out of his left eye.
Bisping explained in a heated reaction video after the fight that the UFC needs to be stricter when it comes to handling eye injuries.
“There was about a minute left when the eye poke happened,” Bisping said.
“Number one, I think we should’ve seen a point deduction, and I don’t say that because I want to see Song Yadong’s career jeopardised or anything like that.
“I have a lot of respect for (Yadong’s) whole team but the eye pokes, people need to know that there’s f****** consequence, eye pokes are terrible, you know all about my history with the eyes, eye pokes are bad.”
Bisping was forced to undergo several painful surgeries in order to rectify an injury sustained during a knockout loss to Vitor Belfort in 2013.
Belfort’s kick left Bisping with a detached retina that permanently damaged his eyesight, and the Brit now rocks a prosthetic eye that he has removed several times on camera.
‘The Count’ believes MMA’s biggest league should introduce ‘immediate consequences’ for fighter who are caught eye poking.
“If you start taking points, people will stop stretching their f****** fingers out,” Bisping added.
“And when the third round started, there was only a minute left. Song Yadong had his fingers out, and so did Henry Cejudo!
“I’m like, ‘Why isn’t the referee saying anything?,’ something needs to be done, stricter penalties need to be in place, there needs to be immediate consequences for people poking fighters in the eye. It’s as simple as that.”
Former two-division champion Cejudo was making his long awaited UFC return, coming off a loss to current bantamweight titleholder Merab Dvalishvili in February 2024.
Ahead of the fight, he had stated his intentions of securing fights with the likes of ex-champion Sean O’Malley en route to another shot at the 135-pound strap.
‘Triple C’ utilised faints at the beginning of his main event to try and catch Yadong, who remained calm and patient while defending all of his opponent’s three attempted takedowns.
Yadong was up on the judges’ scorecards as the fight continued into the fourth, which meant referee Jason Herzog was able to obtain their verdict and Yadong was awarded the victory.
If the fight had been stopped in the third round after the eye poke, the bout may have been ruled a no contest, or Cejudo could’ve received a disqualification victory.
“We’re about to be brothers,” Cejudo told Bisping during his post-fight octagon interview.
“I couldn’t see out of my left eye, my right is fine, but in that last minute when he was chasing me I didn’t know what he was throwing at me.
“I can’t see from the left. I wanted to continue, but if I can’t see he was just going to hurt me.”
UFC President Dana White commented on the controversial finish while addressing the media in Seattle.
He insisted that he is ‘not even a little bit interested’ in a rematch between Cejudo and Yadong, which has prompted the former to urge his boss to ‘reconsider’.
Yadong has revealed that he wants O’Malley next if White is unwilling to book a rematch with Cejudo.
O’Malley hasn’t appeared inside the Octagon since dropping the bantamweight title to Dvalishvili at UFC 306 in September.
