When we say the worst looking eye injury ever 'seen', we certainly don't mean to be as harsh on Matt Mitrione as that sounds. The veteran UFC heavyweight has bowed out of his UFC contract on the back of a stinging defeat to Travis Browne at UFC Fight Night 81 in Boston.
While that's enough of a blow for the 37 year old fighter, the manner of defeat will hurt even more. Mitrione suffered a TKO loss in the third round when the referee stepped in to prevent what was becoming horrible punishment as a result of an eye injury that, quite simply many would have assumed was nigh on impossible.
We'd give you a warning but you're already at this point so here it is.
Matt Mitrione's poor eye. pic.twitter.com/eWPHIRddUY
— Chamatkar Sandhu (@SandhuMMA) January 18, 2016
And in perfect clarity via powersimagery.
Mitrione's eye blew up as a result of perfectly legal blows. However, the build up to those blows has caused quite a lot of controversy and it almost certainly contributed to the extent of the injury. Two eye pokes from Browne, the second of which was aimed directly at Mitrione's right eye have left a lot of fans questioning why something wasn't done to halt the Browne's stray digits.
Mitrione has since tweeted an updated version of the eye injury and while the gruesomeness has decreased slightly, he did confirm that he had suffered a broken orbital floor.
I'm sorry I lost tonight. If this was my last fight, I wanted to go out on my shield. The eye pokes had an effect but things happen
— Matt Mitrione (@mattmitrione) January 18, 2016
Broken orbital floor. This and the shoulder happened after the 2nd eye poke. I don't think they would've happened pic.twitter.com/wFn1NC3j5Y
— Matt Mitrione (@mattmitrione) January 18, 2016
