Should the UFC run back Tom Aspinall vs. Ciryl Gane?
MMA Junkie’s Mike Bohn takes a look at what should happen next after the no-contest finish to the UFC 321 main event.
Michael Bisping is “annoyed” with how the UFC 321 main event ended between Tom Aspinall and Ciryl Gane.
Saturday’s heavyweight title fight in Abu Dhabi ended with the worst-case scenario when Gane (13-2 MMA, 10-2 UFC) poked Aspinall (15-3 MMA, 8-1 UFC) in the eyes during the late stages of the first round. The champion could not recover from the illegal blow and the bout was ruled a no contest.
UFC Hall of Famer and commentator Bisping shared the same sentiments of disappointment as many others in the MMA community.
“Of course, it was a disaster – an absolute fiasco,” Bisping said on TNT Sports’ UFC 321 post-fight show. “They’ve got to do something about these eye pokes. … The main thing is that his vision is going to be OK – fingers crossed. We hope. Probably will – it’s just hopefully a bit of temporary vision loss and a scratched cornea or something like that. That remains to be seen. What makes it extra frustrating is all the circumstances leading into it – the time he was waiting for this moment and all the rest of it. But it was turning out to be a tremendous fight.
“That fight was great. They went at each other. They went toe-to-toe. Ciryl Gane was standing his ground. He wasn’t dancing around, he wasting trying to avoid the fight, he wasn’t trying to make it boring. He was standing there and having to trade. He defended the takedowns, as well. It was really looking like a tremendous fight.”
Although Bisping is a close friend of Aspinall, he is something of an authority on eye poke related matters. He fought his final career bouts with completely impaired vision in one eye, including winning performances in UFC title bouts.
Bisping said his situation far differs from Aspinall, and defended his fellow Brit from those claiming he should’ve continued the fight.
“There’s people online saying, ‘When you’re saying multiple times you can’t see, if you want to continue you shouldn’t be saying that.’ Reality is, if he can’t see, tell the truth,” Bisping said. “If you can’t see, you’re allowed to say you can’t see. People might point to me and say, ‘Well you fought with one eye.’ Yeah, it was a secret because I shouldn’t have been fighting. Tom is the champion of the world and he doesn’t want to go out there when his vision is impaired or massively affected and potentially lose a fight that was shaping up to be a difficult fight.
“Ciryl Gane was on point. You saw the damage on Tom’s face. This was not an easy fight by any stretch of the imagination. He didn’t want to continue with his vision damaged or not being able to see. I don’t blame him. The crowd were upset – I get that. They were frustrated.”
Bisping is hopeful that Aspinall is not facing any long-term damage to the eye. If he avoids serious injury, UFC CEO Dana White said post-fight that he is open to a quick turnaround for an immediate rematch.
How quick, exactly? Bisping said he’d like to see it happen in 2025.
“They could do the fight next week assuming everything is OK with Tom’s eyes,” Bisping said. “MSG (in November) or December. … Final pay-per-view, three title fights, what a way to go out.”
