The Deadly Eye Gouge

**Jack Rusher** · Posted On: 12/23/2007 9:17am

Chris Detrick, a sports photographer, captured this fine example of the tiger-claw eye gouge during a December 16th BYU v Pepperdine basketball game:

... according to the accompanying blog entry:

No foul was called on the play. Although Tavernari missed the basket immediately following the eye gouge, he did not seem to be injured. Later in the game, he made back-to-back three-pointers along the right baseline, helping secure BYU's lead. Tavernari finished the game with 10 points.

Another data point for those who still believe an eye gouge is a fight ender...

**Christian_** · Posted On: 12/23/2007 9:24am

wow, that's crazy.

**The Question** · Posted On: 12/23/2007 9:34am

Alternatively, we could look at any of the times that eye gouges have seriously messed people up.

Also, the following quote:
"Yeah, the eye poke is hard to recover from" - Randy Couture.

**SFGOON** · Posted On: 12/23/2007 9:58am

That's not the real eye gouge.

**Kozma** · Posted On: 12/23/2007 10:22am

Obviously poking someone in the eye's is an effective move

Just because it is not allowed in MMA doesnt mean MMA is "ineffective on teh str33t"

**Ungjaevel** · Posted On: 12/23/2007 10:33am

Well, as his body alignment shows, he is clearly not using t3h l3thal ninja principles as handed down by the secret grand master of the deng xiao ping province. Were he to allign his meridians, put his foot such that it effectively harnessed the chi of everyone in the building, and think of ashida kim real hard, the effectivity would have been far greater. duh.

**Teh El Macho** · Posted On: 12/23/2007 10:42am

Wow, if that **** was intentional, that guy was a douchebag who deserve to have his balls chewed by an angry goat or something.

**Rivington** · Posted On: 12/23/2007 11:08am

It looks like he was trying to bowl with the other guy's face.

**whisper** · Posted On: 12/23/2007 11:17am

..yeah.

There's a difference between missing a bat for a basketball and deliberately pushing your fingers into someone's eyes. You can tell by his body and wrist that the motion was downwards, rather than forwards. Pushing your fingers into someone's eye will hurt. I can't really see how that could be debated, but there we go.

**jdinca** · Posted On: 12/23/2007 11:22am

There's a difference between a "claw" and a "gouge". That appears to be the former. There's plenty of evidence that an eye gouge can do serious damage. This guy was lucky, it could have been much worse.