Tom Aspinall’s fighting future remains unclear.
It’s been over a month since Aspinall’s disappointing UFC 321 heavyweight title defense, which ended in less than around when opponent Ciryl Gane caught him Aspinall with an eye-poke that rendered him unable to continue. Aspinall left Abu Dhabi with his belt in hand, but also received a mixture of criticism and support, with some questioning whether he should have fought through the foul, and others placing more of the blame on Gane for poking Aspinall’s eye in the first place.
Aspinall has provided regular updates on his recovery—and fired back at critics, including UFC CEO Dana White—and on Monday, Uncrowned shared footage of Aspinall discussing his next move with eye specialist Dr. Aws Al-Hity.
Watch a clip below, courtesy of UFC on TNT.
“It’s very obvious,” Al-Hity said, assessing the condition of Aspinall’s eye. “So when he’s looking up and in, the left eye is going up and in extremely well. The right eye is kind of stopping. You see how the right eye is just not as high up as the left and it’s not as turning to the left as the left eye is and that’s a restriction. So the eye wants to go and he wants to track it, but the more I do this, the more he’s going to start aching in that upper inner aspect.
“And then what he’s going to do if he’s in a fight situation, he’s not going to be dealing with it. He doesn’t want the ache in the eye, and he also doesn’t want to have double, so what he’s going to do is tilt his head.”
Prior to the UFC 321 main event debacle, Aspinall had won and defended an interim heavyweight title. He was promoted to undisputed champion when Jon Jones vacated that status via retirement this past June (though Jones has since campaigned for a comeback fight at this coming June’s UFC White House event). Aspinall had long targeted a unification bout with Jones, but had to settle for Gane, and now possibly an immediate rematch though nothing has been made official yet.
For now, Aspinall isn’t even sure when he’ll be permitted to fully train again, much less fight.
“It’s a long road ahead, but the prognosis is guarded at the moment,” Al-Hity told Aspinall. “I would recommend that you wouldn’t fight until your double vision is resolved for two reasons: One, it could potentially make things worse and set you back even further, or that your training because you’re still having double vision looking into the periphery, you wouldn’t be at your peak.”
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