Tom Aspinall might have to blink his way through a barrage of messages he’s surely receiving after he was unable to continue following an eye poke delivered by Ciryl Gane that resulted in a no-contest in the UFC 321 main event.
The disappointing conclusion to the heavyweight title fight saw Aspinall take a finger directly to his eye, which he stated numerous times left him unable to see. As a result, referee Jason Herzog stopped the fight but former UFC title challenger Chael Sonnen couldn’t help but question Aspinall’s decision in that moment.
“Being poked in the eye is illegal but to fight with one eye is very common,” Sonnen said during the UFC 321 post-fight show. “Opponent is trying to hit your eye, trying to bust up to make your nose bleed so that part of it does have questions for guys like Anthony [Smith] and I.
“We’re trying to be polite, we’re trying to show grace but in all fairness, you’re the heavyweight champion of the world, you’ve got to fight with one eye at times.”
Anthony Smith, who was sharing the analyst desk with Sonnen had a similar opinion, especially after he endured a nasty eye poke in his fight against Ryan Spann back in 2023. On that night, Smith opted to continue despite his vision being compromised and he knew exactly what to tell the ringside physician and referee to ensure the fight didn’t get stopped.
“I’m not saying it’s Tom’s fault, and I’m not going to pretend that I know how bad it is or isn’t,” Smith said. “I think Chael made a poetic point that you have to be used to or willing to fight with one eye. I did it in Singapore. Everyone talks about it all the time where the lady’s waving stuff in front of my eyes. I can’t see it. So what do I do? I just walk away and say let’s fight.
“You either want to or you don’t. My fight wasn’t for a world title. I didn’t have Ciryl Gane in front of me throwing bombs, but the second that there was an issue, I knew that I wanted to continue so I know what to say. You never say ‘I can’t see’ if you want to continue to fight.”
Sonnen couldn’t help but wonder if Aspinall possibly faced a tougher fight than he initially accepted after walking into the octagon as a heavy favorite to successfully defend his title.
Instead, Gane gave him everything he could handle during the opening round, which included a slick jab that busted up Aspinall’s nose.
Now does that mean Aspinall was on his way to losing? Of course not but Sonnen knows the momentum was definitely favoring Gane just before the stoppage.
“First off, I thought the fight was turning out to be a little bit harder than Tom expected,” Sonnen said. “I had one concern with Tom and this is not his fault just because he’s so doggone good but the reality is he finished six guys in the first round. He’s never been to a third round of a fight, just for example, so the question is how are you going to respond when things get tough? Tom was throwing bombs. Tom was throwing the kind of punches had they landed, would have ended the night and did end the night for six prior opponents. I’m just saying, when the opportunity came to take a little bit of a break, you can use that and you can even game that system to catch your wind. There was something that the way the story was being told, the way it was being held on the eye and never removed.
“Don’t forget this cloth that he had on his eye contained an ice cube. This wasn’t some kind of magic cloth that was going to cure a cornea or something wrong with your eye or even take swelling away. It contained an ice cube and it was just being held on there oddly. Then there were conversations taking place, there was a story being told and I’ve checked out of fights before. I know what it looks like and I knew that he was done.”
While replays shows the severity of the eye pokes, Sonnen obviously feels that Aspinall probagly still could have moved forward even if that meant fighting with a compromised eye.
“He said ‘I got poked in the eye and I can’t see,’” Sonnen said. “If you get poked in the eye and you’re injured, we have a totally different conversation. If you get poked in the eye and you can’t see, generally in our sport that’s just something you’ve got to push through.”
Like it or not, Smith says Aspinall is going to deal with some criticism in the aftermath of this whole ordeal so he better get ready to face the fallout.
“I’ll tell you what the narratives going to be tomorrow is that Tom Aspinall was in a fight that was harder than he thought it was going to be, like Chael historically talks about, and looked for a way out,” Smith said. “That’s going to be the narrative.
“That’s not what I’m saying. I would never say that. But that’s what everybody else is going to say.”
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