Was Tom Aspinall’s inability to continue fighting Ciryl Gane at UFC 321 a cop out? It was a double-eye poke, that too, in the heavyweight division. The move wasn’t intentional from Ciryl Gane, but was it bad enough for the referee to stop the fight? Well, a few doctors have given their verdict on the situation, and while Aspinall has found quite a bit of support, the popular opinion is that it may not have been as serious as the champion described.

Tom Aspinall may have been aware that questions would be raised regarding his decision to stop fighting after getting poked. So, he made sure to release a video of the treatment he got for his eyes after the fight. The doctor who treated Aspinall’s eye shared his observations, which may not be music to the ears of the heavyweight champion’s fans. Let’s take a look.

Was Tom Aspinall’s eye injury a ruse? Doctors explain

The doctor in Abu Dhabi appeared to support referee Jason Herzog’s decision to stop the fight. But when it comes to his diagnosis, the doctor claimed that he found no serious injuries in Tom Aspinall’s eye. “Of course [it’s good that the referee stopped the fight]… But I didn’t find anything dangerous,” he said on Aspinall’s YouTube video.

Meanwhile, the French MMA Federation’s Dr. Jean-Marc Sene added to what the UAE doctor said. He concluded that there were no severe lesions on the champion’s eye, and believes the injury was “superficial”, in that the impact took place on the outer part of his eye and not necessarily the inner.

“The open eyelid is the cornea, the part that we are going to scratch. It hurts a lot, and it can cause problems. If we have closed eyes, closed eyelids, we will have compression lesions. With compression of the eye, we can imagine the vitreous in the eye, the retina in the back, we can imagine that we have lesions at this level. Here, of course, the fingers go in, but finally, we have the impression that it remains relatively superficial,” Dr. Sene told RMC Sport Combat.

Dr Brian Sutterer

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“Even if it’s not basically a big, bad, severe injury, it can clearly cause enough visual impairment that the fight should be stopped… People thought that his eye visually looked okay… There’s a big difference between something looking okay and something functioning okay,” he told Ariel Helwani. “When you get knuckles dug deep into eyes, not just on one side, but on both sides, that is plenty force, that’s plenty trauma to cause your eye to not function the right way.”

Well, Dr. Brian Sutterer isn’t the only person who’s backing Tom Aspinall for not choosing to fight after getting poked. While legends like Dustin Poirier seemed disappointed with the heavyweight champion, Brendan Schaub came out to blast the critics for their “casual take.”

Brendan Schaub shows support for Aspinall

Ciryl Gane‘s performance against Jon Jones and his controversial split-decision victory over Alexander Volkov left a bad taste in the fans’ mouths. He appeared to have lost some credibility, but come UFC 321, he looked like a different fighter. The Frenchman took the fight to Tom Aspinall in the opening round, landing solid shots, stuffing takedown attempts, and even causing the champion to bleed.

When Tom Aspinall had to stop fighting because he could not see, people started criticizing him for choosing a way out of the fight. They believed he was losing, but according to Brendan Schaub, these claims are bogus. Reminding people about how Aspinall laid waste to some of the most dangerous contenders in the heavyweight division, the former UFC fighter deemed the narrative regarding the Salford native as being “terrible.”

“The whole narrative on oh Tom wanted out, he was losing the fight, he found a way out. Shut the f— up. It’s such a casual take. You’re talking about the guy that fought Sergei Pavlovich, this scary Russian dude, and stared him down in his hometown. You’re telling me that guy was looking for a way out? Anyone who’s saying that is not made of the same DNA as Tom Aspinall,” Brendan Schaub said on X.

Incidents of eye pokes will always create debates, and much like Tom Aspinall, others have also faced similar criticism for choosing to stop fighting after getting poked. But the real question is: what are Dana White and the other execs doing about preventing such incidents in the future? There’s one solution, which is to change the glove design. It remains to be seen how the CEO navigates this situation. As for Aspinall, he may need to start preparing for the rematch.