If you missed it while watching football this past Saturday, that’s okay. You see, the UFC 321 headliner from Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi ended in massive disappointment when Tom Aspinall’s first defense of his undisputed heavyweight title vs. Ciryl Gane was ruled a ‘no-contest’ after an accidental eye poke rendered Aspinall unable to continue with only 25 seconds remaining in the first round.
Before the foul, however, Gane was enjoying lots of success with his jab, busting up Aspinall like we’ve never seen before in his first nine Octagon appearances. A jab from Gane early in the first round bloodied Aspinall’s nose.
Prio to facing Gane, Aspinall had won three fights in a row by knockouts in 73, 69 and 60 seconds vs. Marcin Tybura, Sergei Pavlovich and Curtis Blaydes, respectively. He had won all eight of his UFC fights via finish inside of two rounds with seven of those coming in less than four minutes of the opening frame.
The lone blemish on Aspinall’s UFC-specific resume was a TKO loss to Blaydes when Aspinall shredded his knee while throwing a leg kick 15 seconds into the contest.
Reactions to the result of the fight outcome have varied. UFC President Dana White was critical of Aspinall for choosing not to continue, and others like former fighters Chael Sonnen and Anthony Smith went the same route.
On the flip side, former welterweight contender Matt Brown came to Aspinall’s defense aggressively.
“I’ve really been disgusted with that narrative that you’re talking about where everybody’s blaming Tom Aspinall,” Brown said on the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer. “Where did this come from? How did he do anything wrong? People saying, ‘oh should have just sucked it up with one eye.’ Get the f*ck out of here. What are you talking about? We’re not in a death match. This isn’t f*cking like Street Fighter. It’s not a video game. This is a professional competition. He wants to win and give himself the best chance of winning.
“For one, I think Tom Aspinall would have continued had there been the right circumstance. Like if his life was on the line or something but he’s like ‘I can’t see out of my eye.’ He probably couldn’t see out of his other eye very well either. The one that got knuckle f*cking deep. It’s like live to fight another day. Try again. If this was anything other than this match, I don’t think it wouldn’t even be talked about that way. This particular match, the circumstances just added up where now Tom Aspinall is an easy target.”
Aspinall, who was actually poked in both of his eyes, is still struggling with his vision.
In a video on Aspinall’s YouTube channel Tuesday, his father spoke about his most recent visit to an eye doctor.
“[Eye specialist] said it’s bad,” Andy Aspinall said about his son. “It’s not good, but his eye is a little bit more closed than it was. His right eye he still can’t see anything. It’s just gray. They’ve tested him on words, and he just couldn’t see anything. His left eye, 50 percent, he went down about four letters and then just couldn’t see the letters. So, one’s really, really blurry and one’s still not working.”
Until Aspinall’s vision improves, there’s no telling what sort of timeline we’re looking at for a rematch, but White confirmed Saturday that a rematch is undoubtedly what’s next for both fighters.
Most books had Aspinall as a -400 ‘chalk’ for this past Saturday’s showdown, but he won’t be nearly as expensive for the rematch.
As of Wednesday afternoon, DraftKings had Aspinall as a -198 favorite, leaving Gane as a +164 underdog.