[embedded content]
T.J. Dillashaw thinks UFC heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall chose to live to fight another day.
Aspinall (15-3 MMA, 8-1 UFC) was rendered unable to continue after getting poked in the eye by Ciryl Gane (13-2 MMA, 10-2 UFC) in their title fight this past Saturday at UFC 321 in Abu Dhabi. The fight was ruled a no contest.
Up to that point, Aspinall was perhaps facing the most adversity so far in his UFC career, with Gane stretching him past his fight-average time and busting up his nose with jabs. Dillashaw isn’t sure how hurt Aspinall was and thinks he probably could have continued fighting.
“First and foremost, it was a foul, and Ciryl Gane is the one to blame for it,” Dillashaw said on the JAXXON PODCAST. “But, from the optics, and the way that it looked, his eye was closed when he got poked in it. He was saying he couldn’t see, and he wasn’t even trying to open his eye to see if he could see. Obviously I have no idea, I’m not there.
“But you see the pictures afterwards, and his eye looks fine. I’ve seen a whole finger go into someone’s eye, and they keep fighting. So, I don’t know. It’s all speculation, but I feel like he might have taken the easier way out. It’s a no contest, he gets to come back, he gets paid $3 million. Come back and do it again.”
Dillashaw thinks Aspinall underestimated Gane.
“His athleticism and like how well he’s able to keep the fight in his distance, and control distance, and keep his shots firing,” Dillashaw said on what Aspinall overlooked. “Aspinall has never been out of the first round. He bum-rushes you, hits you with power, puts you out. Wasn’t going that way, and you get a way out where you’re still the champion, and you still get paid, and you still get to do it again.
“I don’t know. Just the optics of it, the way that he got poked with his eyes closed and just like not even trying to open his eyes to really see, and the doctor’s like his eye looks fine. It just didn’t look good. Obviously I don’t want someone to fight impaired, but at the same time, it just looks too fishy.”
Aspinall’s father and coach, Andy, provided an update on his son in which he claimed that he still couldn’t see out of his right eye as of Tuesday and has 50 percent vision in his left one.
