UFC heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall has revealed he is set to undergo multiple eye surgeries following injuries suffered in his October bout against Ciryl Gane.
The 32-year-old retained his heavyweight strap against Gane at UFC 321 after the bout was ruled a no-contest when the Brit sustained a devastating double eye poke in the first round.
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After meeting with specialists to assess the full extent of the damage, Aspinall had earlier indicated that surgery might be required as part of his recovery.
That process is now going ahead, with Aspinall confirming that procedures on both eyes are expected to be completed in the coming weeks.
“By the time this (video) is going out I’ll probably have surgery on one eye already,” Aspinall said on his YouTube channel.
“Next surgery is coming mid-January. So, we’re working towards getting back and that’s the plan.”
Aspinall hasn’t specified when he’ll be fit enough to return to training or accept a fight.
Since the injury occurred, Aspinall has made it clear that he wants to run it back again with Gane, who he has accused of intentionally targeting his eyes.
“When it happened initially, I didn’t really think much of it,” Aspinall said on his YouTube channel earlier in the month.
“I thought it was an accidental eye poke. When I watch the fight back, that’s when I really got the gist of what’s going on.
“The guy was trying to f**king poke my eyes out all the way through that round. Multiple exchanges, nearly every exchange I could have put him in danger, he had his fingers out, pointing towards my eyes.
“The guy was cheating from the first second. The way that he wanted to win that fight was to have me compromised by cheating.”
In a recent interview with Adam Catterall, Aspinall sent Gane a threat.
“I’m not even thinking about (retiring) because you’ve got to take one step at a time, don’t you?” he said.
“Obviously the plan is to go back and beat the living daylights out of Ciryl Gane, that’s the plan, but right now, the short-term plan is to get back to where I should be and get back in the gym.”
After the fight with Gane ended in a no contest, UFC boss Dana White said, “Tom didn’t want to continue in the fight,” and later added, “there was no damage to the eye.”
Aspinall later pushed back on White’s remarks, telling The Ariel Helwani Show, “I was very disappointed, yeah. Very disappointed … It didn’t help the cause.”
White later clarified that he wasn’t trying to speak negatively about Aspinall, saying, “I know Tom said I haven’t even talked to him and all this stuff but we have people all over him right now checking up on him and making sure he’s good,” said White.
“I’m not a doctor – I’m just saying what I heard. I said Tom’s eyes are good, he’s going to take some time, heal, that’s all I said.
“Never once did I say anything negative about him in a derogatory way. I’m sure he’s upset, fired up and he’ll get better and we’ll get him back there.”
Aspinall also copped heavy criticism from fans for his reaction to the eye poke at UFC 321 – and no sympathy from former champion Jon Jones.
“When Tom gets hurt, he’s like immediately incapacitated,” Jones said.
“Immediately. It’s like you poke my eye, there was no like [trying to blink it out].
“I would have been the silliest looking cat on national TV [blinking my eyes] trying [to continue].”
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Jones has since stated that he’d like to make a comeback against UFC light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira at UFC’s planned White House event next year.
Aspinall has won nine of his 11 fights in the Octagon, finishing every one of those victories before the final bell.
His only hiccup came in July 2022 at UFC London, when he suffered a knee injury in the first round against Curtis Blaydes.
He later avenged that defeat with a first-round KO of Blaydes during an interim heavyweight title defense at UFC 304.
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