What a surprise...
A Jones fan throwing shade at the person who was on the receiving end of an eyepoke and trying to blame the victim. What??? Tom didn't work on his eye-poking defence? How many fighters train for that? I want to see that footage please. Would be pure comedy gold. It's not Gane's fault that Tom got eye-poked?
The comedy writes itself.
The "modern, evolved, thinking fighter" exercised his brains and elected not to continue fighting while he was disadvantaged. Do you suggest he continue brawling and risk further injury just to satisfy stupid fans instead? Be real. You're pissed he didn't lose his title too. You have Jones as your AV, and you're blathering on about a champion being noble and shit. Get the fuck out of here with that nonsense, this is pure drivel.
I'm not sure if you used up Joe's supply of weed or alpha brain, but you got something going on, amigo.
I don’t think this is about an eye poke. I think the eye poke is just the excuse.
Because I watched Tom Aspinall build his entire identity around being the smartest heavyweight in the room. The modern one. The evolved one. The thinking fighter who saw things others didn’t. And I watched that same guy spend more time calling out Jon Jones than acknowledging the men actually standing across from him. Legacy talk. Unfinished business talk. Measuring himself against a standard he hadn’t earned proximity to yet.
So then the moment comes. The moment where things don’t go according to script. And suddenly it’s not about evolution anymore. It’s not about answers. It’s about circumstances.
I’ve heard all the justifications before. Nobody did anything wrong. Cyril Gane didn’t commit a sin. The referee didn’t conspire. The universe didn’t single him out. And somehow, in all of this, the only person who’s not allowed to be examined is the man who keeps telling us how complete he is.
I watched him rise. I watched him get the belt. I watched people tell me this was the future. And when that future got interrupted, everyone rushed in to explain why this time the standard shouldn’t apply. Why adversity should be treated as an external injustice instead of part of the job description. You don’t get to have it both ways. You don’t get to spend years presenting yourself as the inevitable answer while quietly lowering the bar the moment reality pushes back.
And here’s the part people don’t want to hear: the fixation on Jones is what makes this sting. Because Jones absorbed chaos, controversy, fouls, bad nights, bad optics, and kept winning. He didn’t get moral exemptions. He didn’t get pauses. He didn’t get the benefit of “understandable circumstances.” He got judged by outcomes.
So when Aspinall talks like he’s already that guy, and then reality intervenes, people notice the gap. Not because they hate him. Not because they’re cruel. But because greatness doesn’t get graded on intent.
You can sympathize with the situation if you want. That’s human. But don’t confuse sympathy with absolution. Because the belt doesn’t care, the division doesn’t care, and history definitely doesn’t care.
That’s not blaming the victim. That’s holding the claimant to the standard he volunteered for.
