Aljamain Sterling has some questions about Tom Aspinall and the infamous eye poke.
This past weekend, Aspinall made the first defense of his undisputed heavyweight title, fighting Ciryl Gane i the main event of UFC 321. The bout ended in catastrophe after an illegal eye poke from Gane in the first round rendered Aspinall unable to continue, resulting in a No Contest and many unsatisfied fans. Those fans, and some of Aspinall’s fellow fighters, have been quick to attack Aspinall for not continuing to fight, and Sterling sympathizes with them.
“Illegal eye poke. Unintentional, but it happened, double zoink,” Sterling said on his YouTube channel. “Now Tommy is definitely compromised. So I can’t knock that or discredit any of that. I think he’s for sure compromised. Whether or not he could have continued is a question he would have to ask himself, and it sucks because now a lot of people are turning on in him in such a critical moment. …
“Right away, the guy is saying, ‘I can’t see.’ That is the one thing I have to say, Tommy really, really f*cked up. You can’t say, ‘I can’t see.’ We know those [words] are the nail in the coffin to any fight. You go, ‘I can’t see,‘ the ref stops the fight, the doctor comes in to look at you, and they stop the fight. You can’t say that. So if you actually want your five minutes to try to recover to see if you can stay in the fight, you can’t use those words.”
“The ref came over multiple times and was kind of asking him, giving him multiple chances to say, ‘Hey, I’m giving you time.’ ‘I can’t see.’ Just say, ‘OK, let me have my time to see if things get better.’ If guys want to compete, that’s what they say.”
Sterling, famously, suffered a similar situation at UFC 259 when he became the first, and thus far only, fighter to win a UFC title by virtue of a disqualification, after Petr Yan illegally kneed him in the head, rendering him unable to continue. In the aftermath of that incident, Sterling was widely villainized by the fanbase for not continuing to fight, and so one would think that might make him connect more with Aspinall’s side of things, but that’s not exactly the case.
“I got illegally kneed, blasted in the head, and I got destroyed on social media for a year and a half,” Sterling said. “Still to this day, people still bring it up. … Pelted in the head, now you’ve got this situation where I’m sitting on the ground and I go, ‘Just give me my time, and I’ll see if I can recover.’ Now you have this where it’s, ‘I straight up can’t see.’ I kind of wonder if I was kneed in the head and I go, ‘I can’t continue, my head hurts,’ because that’s how I felt. But I know if I said that, the fight is over. The ref stops the fight. Tommy could have done the same thing. Just say, ‘I need a few more minutes. Let me have my time to see if things get better.’”
Aspinall went to the hospital immediately following UFC 321 to have his eye examined and appears to have avoided any serious injury. And while that is obviously good news, it also raises even more questions for Sterling.
“The replay, it did not look good. The only thing I will say is, there was no cornea abrasion,” Sterling said. “… From the photo, it looked like Tommy is OK and not going to have any long-term damage, any detached retina, and that is a good thing. …
“I do feel, watching the fight, there is something to be said that the fight looked like it was starting to get tough. And for those things, it makes me question it. Do I question Tommy and his integrity? No. But it makes me question, did that hurt as much as you said it did? It makes me wonder. But at the end of the day, I’m not in Tommy Aspinall’s body, I’m not behind his eyeballs.”
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Incredible cognitive dissonance from Aljamain: “I do not question Tom and his integrity, but it makes me question if that hurt as much as you said it did.” SIR! That is outright questioning his integrity.
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