Daron Cruickshank's eye has permanent damage from Noons' eyepokes

A couple weeks ago, Daron Cruickshank appeared to be on his way to victory against K.J. Noons at the TUF 20 Finale card in Las Vegas. Then, the most unfortunate thing happened. Noons accidentally poked him in the eye in the first round. Not long into the second round, he managed to poke the same eye again. It was immediately apparent that the last eyepoke had done some serious damage, as Daron could no longer see from that eye.

He told the ref (John McCarthy), who offered to give him more time to recover, but Daron informed the cage-side physician that he couldn't continue. The fight ended up as a No Contest, and Cruickshank went home without a win bonus and an eye injury that will have a permanent, lasting effect, through absolutely no fault of his own.

In a recent interview with Marc Raimondi of MMA Fighting, Cruickshank detailed his injury, which is normally seen in dog attacks and auto accidents. Here's what he had to say:

"There was no recovering," he said. "I didn't want to fight with one eye."

Cruickshank made the right call. When he got out of the Octagon, he was further examined by a UFC doctor who told him he had not seen an injury like Cruickshank's in 10 years in the fight game. Cruickshank had a torn tear duct in his left eye -- the kind of issue the doctor had only experienced previously in "car accidents and dog attacks."

After the event, Cruickshank went to the doctor's office where he was further examined. The UFC doctor on call coincidentally happened to be an eye specialist. The next day, he had surgery to repair the torn duct. He won't be able to tear up from his left eye anymore, but other than that he is OK.

"So many guys get poked and there are no points given up," Cruickshank said. "Everybody gets warnings. They need to enforce what they have. There needs to be different rules. From my instance, I won the first round and I was winning the second round. It could have went to the judges scorecards then."

"They were both illegal blows," Cruickshank said. "What if he would have kicked me in the groin twice? Is it still a no contest or is it a win? It should have been a win on my side."

As always, Bloody Elbow will keep our readers updated on this story as more information becomes available.