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Jeremy Stephens showed off his humorous side at the face-off on Thursday leading up to his rematch with Yair Rodriguez at UFC on ESPN 6, appearing in a pair of safety goggles. It was a definite throwback to their previous fight, which ended abruptly after Rodriguez poked Stephens in the eye 15 seconds into the first round.
The encounter ended up being a ‘No Contest’ under the said circumstances. A rematch of the contest will be taking place on Friday, October 18 at TD Garden, Boston, which hopefully will end in a result.
What happened in the previous fight
An unintended but quite hefty eye-poke by Rodriguez left Stephens incapacitated before the bout could even properly begin. The referee intervened and stopped the match for five minutes as per the rules of UFC. The doctor was also called into the Octagon, but Stephens was unable to open his eyes at the end of the stipulated injury time. He walked out of the cage wearing dark sunglasses.
Stephens had to be escorted by security because the crowd at Mexico City Arena was not at all happy with how the fight turned out, as they were hoping for a good show and rooting for their hometown favorite, Rodriguez.
Stephens makes fun of Rodriguez
Rodriguez later said that he was not sure if the eye-poke was hard enough to stop the fight altogether, but he agreed to give his opponent the “benefit of doubt”.
Stephens has clearly not forgotten the subtle jibes, as he appeared in the face-off event wearing protective safety goggles.
We will have to wait for the fight to begin to see whether it goes all smoothly or Stephens should have ideally kept the goggles on in the Octagon as well.
The fight will take place at UFC on ESPN 6 which is headlined by Dominick Reyes and Chris Weidman in the main event.
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