Tom Aspinall has revealed the painful aftermath of the freak eye injury that brought a brutal and unwanted end to his UFC 321 title defence against Ciryl Gane in Abu Dhabi.
The British heavyweight champion was left unable to see after Gane’s fingers raked across both his eyes midway through the first round, forcing an anticlimactic no-contest ruling just as the main event began to heat up.
After four minutes of the opening round, Aspinall threw a kick while Gane lunged forward — and disaster struck. The Frenchman’s hand connected awkwardly with Aspinall’s face, and replays showed his fingers digging into both eyes.
Aspinall immediately backed off, telling the doctor ringside: “I can’t see.” The doctor replied that he had “no immediate concerns about the globe,” but the fight was stopped after the allotted five-minute timeout expired.
The Manchester fighter was rushed to hospital, and days later, he provided fans a grim look at what came next.
Posting to his official YouTube channel, Aspinall sat with his right eye strapped up as he described the incident in raw, emotional detail.
“All that training for that,” he said. “What the f*** is he doing? He got warned twice before it. Twice before it he got warned for it and he f***ing did it again.”
Gane, speaking to reporters after the bout, insisted the poke was unintentional.
“I didn’t do it on purpose,” he said, per the Daily Mail. “I know what it’s like to have an eye poke, because when I fought Derrick Lewis, I got an eye poke and I was seeing two of Derrick Lewis for a full round. During a bit of the round and the rest of the round, I saw two of Derrick Lewis. So I’m not going to say, he’s a liar.”
In the YouTube video, Aspinall appeared to grimace as doctors examined his injured eye. One clip showed a medic shining a light into it as he winced in pain.
“I could feel how deep it was in my eye,” he said. “It feels like the back of my eyeball is hurting. It feels like someone’s touched the back of my eyeball.”
Later footage showed him receiving eye drops, which a doctor told him were for his retina. He noted he was suffering from blurred vision in the right eye.
Speaking to camera, the 31-year-old admitted this was one of the most frightening experiences of his career.
“It was way scarier than what I did to my knee,” he said. “Because with my knee, I knew it was going to be alright. I still don’t know how this is going to be. We’re just waiting for further results. We’ve got to do more tests in the UK. Flying back today, and we’ll go from there. I’m not sure when I’ll be ready to let everyone know what’s going on. Thank you for all the support. See you soon.”
His father also voiced concern, calling the incident “horrendous.”
“It’s a horrendous thing to think as a parent,” he said. “I know what it’s like these days with people saying what they want. But when it’s your son, and they could lose an eye, and their health, and they’ve got children to look after. Something needs doing about it. It’s horrendous to look at [the eye poke incident].”
Back inside the Octagon on fight night, a visibly shaken Aspinall had already made his frustration clear, addressing the booing crowd head-on.
“Guys, I just got f***ing poked knuckle deep in the eyeball,”** he said. “What the f***? Why you booing? What am I supposed to do about it? I didn’t do the f***ing poke. I can’t see. This is bull. The fight was just getting going. Complete bulls***. I’m p****d off. I can hardly open my eye. Look! F***ing double poke, both eyeballs.”
Gane, meanwhile, was emotional in his own interview.
“I am very sorry for that. For the crowd, for the fans, for everybody. Sorry for Tom Aspinall, sorry for myself,” the challenger said.
As Aspinall flies home for further scans and tests in the UK, the heavyweight scene is left in limbo — and questions linger over what happens next for a champion caught in one of the most frustrating endings to a title defence in recent UFC history.
UFC boss Dana White has since confirmed that he will schedule a rematch between the two fighters.
For now, fans can only hope the injury heals cleanly, and that the Brit’s next return to the Octagon doesn’t end in the same kind of nightmare.
Featured image credit: X/UFC/TNT Sports/YouTube/TomAspinall (Screenshot)
