Matt Brown believes that ESPN analysts and former UFC stars Chael Sonnen and Anthony Smith were dead wrong for their belief that Tom Aspinall should have fought through an eye injury in the main event of UFC 321.
On Saturday in Abu Dhabi, UFC 321 came to a frustrating end after just a few minutes when an eye poke from challenger Ciryl Gane to Tom Aspinall made the defending heavyweight champion unable to continue fighting. When it was made official that the bout was over, the Englishman was on the receiving end of loud boos from fans in attendance.
However, various replays of the moment showed that the foul was severe, and that Gane got both of Aspinall’s eyes with the poke. Despite what looked like a bad injury, immediately after the bout, Chael Sonnen and Anthony Smith had surprising opinions about what Aspinall should have done on the ESPN post-fight show.
“Being poked in the eye is illegal, but to fight with one eye is very common,” Sonnen said. “The opponent is trying to hit your eye, he’s trying to bust up and make your nose bleed, so that part of it does have questions for guys like me.
“We’re trying to be polite, we’re trying to show grace, but in all fairness, you’re the heavyweight champion of the world. You’ve got to fight with one eye at times.”
Smith did not disagree with Sonnen’s opinion. Well, fellow UFC veteran Matt Brown does.
Matt Brown defends Tom Aspinall’s decision at UFC 321
“He’s in a lose-lose situation at that point,” Brown said on the MMA Fighting podcast he co-hosts. “The only saving grace would have been if he went out with one eye and ended up beating the s*** out of Ciryl Gane. If any other situation happens, it’s a lose for him. If he lost, they’re not going to be talking about him getting eye poked; he couldn’t see, and that’s why he lost.
“… I just think they are way off base here,” he added. “I don’t know if they didn’t put any thought into it. If it’s just an immediate reaction. I think there is recency bias where they are disappointed the fight didn’t happen, and I think we all felt the same: How about all the people that paid 80 bucks to watch it? I get that recency bias, but you’ve got to look at this realistically, too.”
Brown admitted he loves both Sonnen and Smith, and has trained with the latter often. But he doesn’t agree with their perspective on how UFC 321 ended, and that there are rules to end a fight after eye pokes. Furthermore, he believes the result should not have been a no-contest, but instead a disqualification for Gane.
