Wang Cong believes an early eye poke derailed her performance in the UFC 332 main event after she lost a unanimous decision to Natalia Silva in their vacant flyweight title fight on October 3, 2026, at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City.
In her first statement after the loss, Wang claimed she was poked in her right eye during the first round. She posted a video on Instagram showing what appeared to be a scratch on her eyeball, saying the injury left her unable to see properly.
“The game is lost. What a pity. I have some regrets then because of the first [round], the eye was poked in the second half,” Wang said on Instagram. “The line of sight is blocked, and then I couldn’t see it when I was poked in the right eye in the first [round].”
The Appeal Process in MMA
Under the Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts, eye gouging and eye poking are explicitly listed as fouls. The ABC MMA Officials Handbook states that “eye gouging of any kind” is illegal, and in the standing position, a fighter moving toward an opponent with “fingers outstretched toward an opponent’s face/eyes” commits a foul.
However, the authority to enforce these rules rests exclusively with the referee.
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The referee is the sole arbiter of a bout, and decisions regarding fouls are generally not subject to reversal by athletic commissions.
In practice, this means that unless the referee on the night of the fight deducts a point or disqualifies a fighter for an eye poke, the result typically stands. The referee’s discretion is broad and rarely overruled.
Eye Poke Appeal Precedents
History suggests that appeals based on eye pokes are almost universally unsuccessful. In June 2024, Bruno Silva appealed his technical decision loss to Chris Weidman after multiple eye pokes contributed to the fight’s stoppage.
The New Jersey State Athletic Control Board denied the appeal, and the loss remained on Silva’s record.
More recently, Michel Pereira sought to appeal his UFC Baku loss to Shara “Bullet” Magomedov, citing hair-pulling and an accidental eye poke where no points were deducted. Pereira argued that a single point deduction would have made the fight a draw.
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Pereira was eventually released from the UFC, and his appeal never resulted in anything.
Why Overturning a UFC Loss Is Nearly Impossible
The regulatory framework in most jurisdictions grants referees near-total discretion in real-time officiating decisions.
According to state regulations cited by the Nevada commission, “the referee is the sole arbiter of a bout, and the referee’s decisions in enforcing the rules… declaring fouls or stopping a contest… may not be overturned, except as otherwise provided”.
For an appeal to succeed, a fighter would typically need to prove that the referee made a clear error that violated specific regulations, not merely that the referee missed a foul. Even then, commissions generally defer to the referee’s judgment about what they observed during the fight.
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Wang Cong has not publicly announced any intention to formally appeal the result. Her Instagram statement focused on accepting the loss and vowing to return, saying, “Where to fall, get up, go back and summarize yourself. Come on, try again.”
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