In the minutes before each of the 12 fights on Monday's GFN 1 card at Tel Aviv's Menora Mivtachim Arena, a member of every fighter's corner performed the same quiet routine: working a thin, glistening film into the cheekbones, brow and nose of the athlete about to walk out. To anyone new to combat sports watching from the stands or the broadcast, it looked almost like make-up being applied backstage.
It was Vaseline, Sport5 reported from ringside. The petroleum jelly reduces friction on the skin while keeping it soft and elastic, and stops it drying out before a fighter takes a punch or a kick to the face.
That matters because dry skin splits far more easily than lubricated skin. The smoother and more supple the surface, the outlet explained, the less damage a strike does for the same amount of friction and impact — which in practice means fewer cuts and less bleeding over the course of a fight.
No fighter wants to walk into the cage or ring already carrying broken skin, and none wants to come out of a bout looking like they went through a war if it can be avoided. The Vaseline is a small, almost invisible piece of preparation aimed squarely at preventing that.
It is not a GFN quirk. Cutmen and cornermen apply it before bouts in boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai and MMA gyms worldwide, as routinely as wrapping hands or checking gloves — a habit so ordinary to those inside the sport that it rarely gets explained to those outside it.
At GFN 1, the ritual bookended a night that made history for Israeli combat sports regardless of what was on anyone's face. All three Gordon brothers — Ahavat Hashem, Ruach Hashem and Kibedy — fought in front of a sold-out house and won, the first time the family had appeared together on one professional card.
For all the noise around that result, it was this understated backstage habit that had newcomers to the sport asking the same question all evening: what exactly are they putting on their faces? The answer, as Sport5 laid out, turned out to be refreshingly unglamorous — a jar of Vaseline, and a job cutmen have quietly been doing for as long as people have been hitting each other for a living.
