Veteran UFC lightweight Jim Miller didn’t hold back after the controversial ending of Tom Aspinall vs. Ciryl Gane at UFC 321.
The heavyweight title fight ended in a disappointing no-contest after Gane accidentally poked Aspinall in both eyes, leaving the champion unable to continue inside the Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi.
While fans debated whether the eye poke was intentional, Jim Miller made his stance clear, this wasn’t a glove issue. It was a fighter issue.
“I’ve got hours inside the Octagon wearing these gloves, it’s not the gloves,” Miller said. “I can close my fist and bend my fingers without the glove even moving. What causes the eye pokes is the fighter being passive, avoiding the fight instead of engaging.”
Miller, the longest-tenured UFC fighter and holder of multiple promotional records, has competed in 46 UFC bouts without ever committing an eye poke. He believes the problem isn’t accidental at all, it’s a lack of accountability.
“The only way we’re going to stop this is if the fighters who commit the foul actually get punished,” he said in a furious Instagram post. “Eye gouging and poking are fouls. If the fighter can’t continue and the foul looks intentional, that should be a disqualification. But it never seems to be ‘intentional,’ right?”
The future Hall of Famer didn’t just criticize Gane, he called out the culture of how such incidents are handled. According to Miller, referees rarely take immediate action, and when they do, it’s inconsistent.
“The person who gets poked is always the bad guy,” Miller said. “They’re called soft for saying they can’t see, while the one who threw the poke gets off easy. That’s nonsense. Points get taken faster for groin shots than for something that can permanently damage someone’s eyesight.”
Miller revealed that he’s had his own vision affected by eye pokes earlier in his career, though he never retaliated or used it as an excuse. Instead, he’s using his platform to demand real change.
“I’ve shared the list before, guys like Frankie Edgar, Clay Guida, Rafael dos Anjos, we’ve spent the most time in the Octagon and never poked anyone in the eye,” Miller said. “If we can go seven-plus hours of cage time without doing it, then nobody else has an excuse. It’s not an accident. It’s lack of discipline, and it needs to be penalized.”
Miller’s proposed solution involves immediate point deductions and financial penalties for fighters who commit eye pokes. “You start taking points and money, and you’ll see the problem disappear overnight,” he said.
With Jim Miller’s voice echoing across the MMA world, the UFC faces growing pressure to tighten its stance on eye poke infractions. For a fighter who has given nearly two decades to the sport without resorting to cheap fouls, his frustration speaks volumes, and it’s hard to argue he’s wrong.
