Jon Jones is a bit of an eye poker. Is it intentional? Is it unintentional? I don’t know but regardless, Jones uses eye pokes, and the threat of an eye poke, to keep opponents at a manageable distance.
With that in mind, a lot of folks found it strange when word broke that Jones’ camp made a request about the referee for his UFC 200 fight, asking Nevada State Athletic Commission head Bob Bennett to have a referee other than the hard-nosed John McCarthy. That has many asking why Jones’ team would ask for a referee change. It also has many answering “because he wants to poke Daniel Cormier in the eyes, duh!”
Jones has had a bad in-cage reputation for a long while now for a number of reasons. He has always been something of a douche in the cage, subtly disrespecting fighters like Rashad Evans and Rampage Jackson during fights (seriously, go watch the breaks at the ends of the rounds in both those fights). In 2014, however, he started being widely labeled as “dirty” due to his eyepoke-filled contest against Glover Teixeira.
McCarthy, meanwhile, is widely viewed as the most no-nonsense ref in the business. What’s more, at the last UFC event, McCarthy barked at Elias Theodorou from start to finish to keep his fists balled to prevent eye pokes.
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