Gunnar Nelson and coach not happy with eye pokes at UFC Glasgow, Ponzinibbio responds

Nelson and his coach, John Kavanagh, are not pleased about the eye pokes at UFC Fight Night 113. Ponzinibbio, however, didn’t even notice them.

Santiago Ponzinibbio might have got the best win of his career at UFC Fight Night 113, knocking out top ten welterweight contender Gunnar Nelson, but the Argentinian has come under fire for landing a series of eye pokes in the lead-up to his KO.

Nelson, 28, said the eye pokes affected the outcome of the fight and told reporters at the post-fight press conference in Glasgow, Scotland that he was ‘seeing two Ponzinibbio’s’ in the Octagon.

“I don’t like to make excuses, but this is the truth, how I feel anyway, is I should have stopped the fight when I got poked,” Nelson said, per Dave Doyle of MMA Fighting. “I should have stopped it then because I’m seeing two Ponzinibbios in front of me. And that was like that until I remember standing up and the fight was over.”

The Icelandic fighter still gave credit to Ponzinibbio for the win but is frustrated with the way things turned out.

“I should have stopped it then and I’m not saying, like, he did a good job and maybe it would have happened anyway,” he continued. “Maybe my reflexes justwouldn’t have been enough to move away from the punch, but this is how I felt, like, I’m kind of kicking myself in the head for not just stopping the fight and being greedy, because I caught him and I thought he was on the run.

“I should have just stopped the fight, recovered my eye, and carried on from there,” he said. “But I didn’t, and here we are now. You win or you learn, and I’ll definitely learn from this.”

Nelson’s long-time coach, John Kavanagh, doesn’t believe the pokes were intentional but posted a video highlighting Ponzinibbio’s carelessness in the fight, landing three blatant illegal strikes in the first 80 seconds.

Ponzinibbio, who is now on a five-fight win streak, brushed off any criticism and said the referee should have halted the action if there was any foul play.

"I went there to knock him out and thank God it went as expected, I won by knockout,” Ponzinibbio said, per MMA Fighting’s Guilherme Cruz. "If (the eye poke) happened, of course it wasn’t intentional, but I watched the video again and didn’t see it. I don’t know. But it was a knockout with the right hand that I landed on him. The right hand hurt him and I finished with a precise jab.

"It doesn’t take anything away from the win. What he says doesn’t change anything. There’s a referee inside the Octagon looking at it, and he can stop the fight any time he wants. The No. 8 in the world lasted 82 seconds. He’s 28, he’s versatile, a great athlete, one of the best in the division, has a bright future in the UFC, will be at the top, but it was an excellent win. (He) lasted 82 seconds.”

The 30-year-old Ponzinibbio rocked Nelson with a right straight and and crumpled him with a left jab. The American Top Team product has finished three of his last five fights via first-round TKO/KO and will surge through the rankings with his win over ‘Gunni’.