A UFC referee has revealed that talks have taken place about introducing new rules regarding eye pokes after the Tom Aspinall incident.
Aspinall's UFC heavyweight championship defence against Ciryl Gane ended disappointingly in a no-contest, when the champion was unable to continue after a first-round eye poke.
Aspinall was given five minutes to continue after the accidental poke from Gane but still couldn't see, leaving the referee with no choice but to enforce an early ending without a winner or a loser.
Herb Dean, a veteran UFC referee, now says that discussions have been held about stricter implementation of eye pokes.
"We made a rule where it's a foul to extend the fingers to the eyes. It's a rule we've already had in place but we haven't been enforcing it," Dean told Michael Bisping's Believe You Me podcast.
"We are going to move forward on that. People haven't been used to seeing someone have a point taken.
"This right here is a dangerous foul. Somebody is going to keep doing a dangerous action.
"We should start taking points by them doing that action before it actually happens to hurt somebody.
"The other thing about MMA? We have a one-point sport. The majority of three-round fights, what's the score? 29-28. So, you take away one point and you've taken away the majority of wins and turned them into draws.
"But we're going to have to do something. That's one of the things we have thought about.
"That's something that is going to happen.
"The other is to write more guidelines about what is the foul. The one with Aspinall? The fingers were up. We might have to change that."
UFC president Dana White intends to rebook the fight between Aspinall and Gane.
But Aspinall still couldn't see out of the right eye in the days following his fight.
Jon Jones, the rival Aspinall had been chasing throughout his 14-month absence from the Octagon, has since criticised the British heavyweight's performance in the fight with Gane.
But Francis Ngannou, the former UFC heavyweight champion, leapt to Aspinall's defence.