It seems a thankless task, being a “good soldier” in the fight world. You can take a world-title fight on two weeks’ notice against one of the most-dangerous heavyweights on the planet. Weigh in as the back-up fighter for a pointless vanity fight involving one of the most-problematic athletes in all of sport. Defend your interim title, when almost no one else would. Sit out for 15 months, waiting for said problematic athlete to decide whether or not to fight you, only for him to retire. Suffer an eye poke that leaves you without your sight for four days – and counting – and sends you in and out of hospitals. And after all of that, your boss can accuse you of not wanting to fight.
When Ciryl Gane’s middle knuckle met Tom Aspinall’s orbital bone, it was not as part of a closed fist; it was part of a probing, gouging finger, venturing under the UFC heavyweight champion’s eyelid and along his eyeball. Aspinall could not continue fighting – this seems an obvious, even unnecessary statement to make, given the context. But that was the case, with Aspinall withdrawing four-and-a-half minutes into his first defence of the undisputed belt, prioritising his vision, health, and ability to look after his children, let alone fight in the future.
“I can’t make people fight,” said UFC president Dana White in the post-fight press conference in Abu Dhabi. “You can’t make someone continue if they feel injured. [Gane] had Tom bloodied up, and Tom didn’t want to continue in the fight. Only Tom knows what happened. Could he see? Couldn’t he see? Only he knows.”
White added that the situation was a “pain in the ass”, but that he would rebook Aspinall vs Gane. He also complimented Gane’s performance, which was admittedly promising – aside from two eye pokes, the second of which was dual pronged, affecting both eyes.
It is understandable if these comments from White read unsympathetically, given they were delivered while an emotional Aspinall, 32, was on his way to the hospital.
It is also understandable that White, 56, was frustrated that his event ended in such deflating fashion. But it is not, of course, understandable enough to justify his dismissiveness of an injury that continues to cause major concern to Aspinall, his father and head coach Andy, and the Wigan fighter’s wider team.
Those who followed fight week closely might feel that White was already agitated before Saturday’s main event rolled around. He had said he ‘hated’ Aspinall’s claim that he would not fight his friend, Ante Delija, who recently entered the UFC’s heavyweight top 10.
Aspinall had said on the ShxtsnGigs Podcast: “The thing is, if I’d never won a title, I’d be like, ‘We have to fight,’ because that’s my dream. But now I’ve done it, I’d be like: ‘I’ll vacate it, and he can have his time.’ I wouldn’t fight him. No chance. He’s one of my genuine friends. There’s some stuff to me that’s more important than money and titles.”
“You know what I think about that, I hate that,” White told TNT Sports. “It doesn’t [matter] whether you are friends with somebody or you hate somebody; you’re competing with them to see who the best is. But that’s his decision. To even think about vacating it because you don’t want to compete against somebody is absolutely insane, but he’s a grown man. That’s up to him.”
As Aspinall noted himself, any potential fight with Delija would be far off anyway. Yet White appeared irked, and he might also have been aggravated by comments made by Andy Aspinall during fight week.
Footage emerged from a backstage conversation with RMC France, with the elder Aspinall making clear his desire for Tom to finish his UFC contract and switch to boxing – where greater paydays would await.
This is a sentiment that Andy has publicised before; it is nothing new. Still, some questioned the timing of this latest utterance, given the UFC has form for failing to deliver fighters the final bout of their contracts in timely fashion. Some athletes wishing to fight elsewhere have seen themselves stuck, waiting for their last UFC fight, only for it to be delayed indefinitely; there is no obligation on the UFC to rush when a fighter has one bout left, and even Conor McGregor has been affected by this model.
In any case, Andy rightly downplayed the idea that his comments affected his son during fight week, and Tom seems content to remain in MMA and forge a formidable legacy.
White has on his hands a uniquely-marketable athlete: a role model outside of the cage, who delivers vicious violence inside it, and who brings a valuable British audience. Yet, in a strange sense, it feels like Aspinall’s UFC future may balance on a knife edge. Then again, that says less about the heavyweight champion’s manner of doing business, and more about White’s.
