“It’s a dangerous sport” – Eye-gouging ends Salford-born heavyweight world champion’s title fight

A controversial eye-gouging incident has left Salford-born MMA fighter and UFC heavyweight world champion, Tom Aspinall, needing more tests before he can fight again.

Aspinall had his fight against Cyril Gane in UFC 321 stopped and declared a no-contest because of an eye poke from Cyril Gane  after just four minutes and 35 seconds.

This is the first time in UFC history that a title fight has ever ended in a no-contest.

A rematch is being discussed and Aspinall retains his belt in the meantime.

Swinton MMA coach Dale Sefton, from the One MMA Academy, said: “It’s an illegal shot for a reason. They can be very damaging.

“It’s already hard enough to fight a top-level athlete when you can see out of both eyes.

“I don’t think it makes sense to risk your championship fight against a very high-level opponent, when you know you’re not 100 per cent.”

Aspinall was initially given five minutes to recover from the incident but was not able to continue.

This led referee Jason Herzog to stop the bout as the reigning champion claimed he still could not see.

Cyril Gane started the fight very well, causing damage to Aspinall’s nose, leading him to bleed within the first minutes. This led to the Frenchman keeping a good range using his jab and leg kicks to leave consistent pressure to Aspinall.

Aspinall was taken to hospital in Abu Dhabi for an initial assessment of his right eye.

The Salfordian fighter will be having more tests in England before he is allowed to fight again.

Aspinall reacted on his YouTube channel under the banner ‘The truth behind Tom Aspinall’s UFC 321 Eye Poke’.

He says: “It is a dangerous sport and then people start booing me like it’s my fault.”

The UFC wrote on its news tab after the fight: “This was not how anyone wanted this fight, and it’s disappointing for both men.

“Aspinall has been out of action for some time awaiting this moment, and Gane was clearly having quality success to start.

“Hopefully Aspinall is able to heal up without issue and we get the opportunity to see these two back across from one another relatively soon.”

Back in Swinton, Sefton added: “There’s a lot of good, high-level guys now that set a good precedent for young athletes that want to try and rise to similar levels, because now they’ve shown that it’s doable.”

The incident has reignited a debate over whether a new glove should be made covering fighters’ fingers.

Sefton responded: “I think it’s a very hard thing to try and do, because obviously, other than potentially completely covering the fingers, which would then limit the grappling that they can do. I think it’s a really hard boundary to try and find. Accidents can happen.”

Aspinall, who has a record of 15 wins and three losses, with 12 wins by way of knockout and two by stoppage, is one of the UFC’s greatest ever champions.

Images from YouTube