By Chris Howie
MMANEWS.COM Staff Writer

UFC Welterweight contender Johny Hendricks put himself in line for a title shot with his split decision victory this past weekend at UFC on Fox 3 over Josh Koscheck and talked about a first round eye poke that could have cost him the fight afterwards:

"He landed a lot because he poked my eye and I was seeing double for the first three mintues," said Hendricks. "I didn’t see clearly again until the second round. So the first round I was trying to circle away and close one eye every so often so I could get a good fix on him and try to throw."

It's not the first time Koscheck has poked an opponent in the eye so it was something Hendricks was aware of prior to the fight and spoke to Ariel Helwani about post fight:

"He does it every fight," said Hendricks. "That’s just him. We knew about it. That’s why I was trying to throw and move my head out of the way. I was moving my head more this fight when I was trying to throw punches because I didn’t want to get poked in the eye because he’s always sticking that hand out there. It ended up catching me and it hurt me."

Leave your feedback on this article by posting a comment directly below! You can also chat about the latest news in the MMANEWS.COM Forums and/or the MMANEWS.COM Facebook. If that wasn't enough, MMANEWS.COM is now on Twitter as well @mmanewsdotcom.