Media Tom Aspinall does full interview on health of eyes, anger at Gane and mental struggles and challenges after eye poke.

[b00tysweat]

You realize he fought 2 months ago right? You realize its Jon's fault for any delay in Tom's schedule right? Jon wasn't "Retired" ie Stripped until June and he was scheduled for Gane in Oct. How much faster was he supposed to fight?

any delay in Toms schedule is Jon's fault

lol Jon Derangement Syndrome is real!

 

[Söze Aldo]

Christopher Nolan should buy rights and make a movie about Tom Asspedal blindness

He can play the cyclops in the Odyssey.

 

[FilipEmoFights]

The rules heavily favor strikers….

Fight starts standing.
It’s by rounds so you get a stand up at the end of each round.

You can’t knee downed opponents, do you know how brutal wrestlers can be if you let them start kneeing?

If there’s no action in the ground you can be stood up, if there’s no action on the feet, do they force you to go to the ground? Or clinch?

Not gonna argue

The cage encourages grappling and gives fighters a literal barrier to hold someone against

That knee you mention is one of the great counters to a bad shot or panic wrestling

The guy on bottom or in guard should be able to use up kicks on a guy on top of him so change those rules but keep soccer kicks out

I’d agree with you totally if we were in rings still but the whole sport and how rounds are scored cage control has now become a big part of how rounds are getting judged

 

[Mike]

Why the hell am I getting notifications about random threads being started now. Jeez this site is such a mess lmao

 

[Tweak896]

The worst part to me is at no point does Tom even ball park a return date. This is 2 months later and surgeries are being talked about in the future.

Just really hate how delayed the HW division is. We haven't had a completed HW title fight since 1 fight in 2024. Even if Tom gets surgery today, that's minimum 3 months recovery I'm guessing (Until mid April). Then add 2 months for a training camp, now we're at mid June 2026.

Almost exactly 1 year since Aspinall was promoted to champ in June 2025, we might not have a fight until July 2026. It's looking like Jones has been a more active HW champion. Both champs hurt by injury, sit out. Different reactions because of how people feel about them.

I'm just saying Aspinall doesn't have Jones resume if we're holding up the division for him. Really how long until we can nail down 1 HW title fight? I'm just saying enough time passes and people will agree with me the UFC should do what they did for LHW, vacate belt, instant title shot on return. I'll take Gane/Pereira or Pereira/Jones for vacant belt if it moves the division.

This could be the longest amount of time that the HW belt has never been defended. Even Jones won in Mar 2023, defended in Oct 2024.

 

[Intermission]

The video itself is clipped around topics so I won’t do any clipping.

Some highlights:

-doesn’t want to keep talking about the eye injury but says people has a right to know so he needs to talk about it.

-He’s very angry at Cyril, mostly at Cyril. He believes it was intentional.

-Loss of vision is very scary

-he likes real people more and social media has fake people and trolls.

-he talks about his eye injury to keep real fans updated, he’s not being defensive against trolls.

-has two surgeries scheduled, one for each eye, no details on type of surgery.

vision for 2026?

 

[dipstickjimmy]

Don’t be mad cause even guys like Waldo disrespecting Tom now.

Salsa boy.

Guy continues because he can still see. Also continues because he otherwise would lose to a TKO. Such a hard choice. Whereas Tom can't see and is in an even fight that hasn't finished the first round. Waldo could see whereas Tom is having surgery on both eyes.

Waldo has nothing to do with it. Gane is a dirty fighter, simple fact. Good for Pico De Gallo Guy but its not about him its about the dirty frenchman. In fact when Tom does return it should be against Waldo and Gane should have to get in line since he fucked up his title shot.

 

[dipstickjimmy]

any delay in Toms schedule is Jon's fault

lol Jon Derangement Syndrome is real!

How so? Who is the UFC supposed to book Tom the Interim Champion against other than the guy holding the Undisputed Title?
What fight did Tom refuse?

 

[dipstickjimmy]

yup. like once a week sounds good. jon sucks. gane has dirty fingers. Don't care. if someone fights, then i got something to watch. if they don't, then i don't and they're meaningless to me.

OK so you expect all UFC champions to fight weekly or is it just Tom?

 

[dipstickjimmy]

just forget that Ante/Tom's team appealed in order to have the result overturned: one week after they were perfectly fine having their fighter rewarded for a foul.

What did they appeal exactly? Do you actually know? You seem to think they felt they should have gotten the win for an eye poke.

He appealed the fight being restarted. When a fight is stopped and replay is used to review the fight is not supposed to be restarted. Ante's appeal said it should have been a NC or a DQ. He did not ask for a win.

The Unified Rules are very clear:
“Instant replay may be used to review a ‘Fight Ending Sequence’ and shall only be used after a fight has been officially stopped. Once instant replay has been used to review a fight ending sequence, the fight shall not be resumed.”

The NSAC said it has its own rules. So why do the Unified Rules even exist??? Even the rules they quoted don't seem to apply. Cortes had a cutman, water and a stool. None of that is allowed during a stop in the fight as opposed to a stoppage. Ref Mark Smith technically didn't waive off the fight but he also did not call "Time" either. He did not instruct the fighters to neutral corners. Everything he did was around the stoppage of the fight. At that point the replay can be used but the fight can not be restarted. Very sketchy.

 

[Alpha_T83]

I support Tom, but I think the UFC is going to strip him of the title. If he has eye surgery as rumored, and he's going to be out for another 6+ months, I just can't see the UFC allowing him to hold the belt the entire time.

But what this will depend on is Jones vs Pereira. If the UFC decides to go with Jon Jones vs Alex Pereira, they would be crazy to make that fight for an interim title. If would have to be for the undisputed title. Otherwise if that fight doesn't happen, Tom might keep the belt and Cyril Gane fights for an interim title.

 

[HereticBD]

Just stop, bro.

Just get whatever you need done, and quit this constant "My eyes, MY EYES!" shit. It's so obnoxious. You're not the first fighter in the world to get poked in the eyes.

 

[Pancake Sprawl]

i hope this is the beginning of his villain arc. it's really the only reason to keep bringing this bullshit up. like i'm with him, that was fucked up and Gane is a dirty bastard, but give it a break already. unless, like i said, this is his villain arc and he's going use this content to tell a complex story of a man shaped by trauma on a quest for dominance. his surgeries goes awry and he's forced to don a Lucha Libre mask to hide his hideous toilet fingered eye sockets. come back to the UFC and fucking backbreaker the shit out of Gane. then turns to the crowd, a complete heel turn, and starts shitting on everyone for teasing him. glorious

 

[BEATDOWNS]

I'm getting Namajunas vibes.

This is worse than when Kevin Lee talked smack about Michael Chiesa's Momma! imho

 

[KO Shotz]

I don't give a shit anymore. Let's get the HW division going again, damn. Strip Tom & when he comes back give him the direct title shot. I don't fckn care if it's against Volkov/Rico winner at this point. Also make Pereira vs Jones