Few people have authority enough to offer Tom Aspinall advice about his future more than UFC Hall of Famer Michael Bisping.
The reigning UFC heavyweight champion is preparing to undergo surgery to repair the damage done from a brutal eye poke that ended his fight against Ciryl Gane back in October. Aspinall hasn’t given a clear indication when he might be able to fight again but UFC color commentator Joe Rogan cautioned that there’s a chance that the eye injury could potentially end his career.
While
that might sound alarming, Bisping actually agrees after he went blind in one eye from repeated surgeries he endured during his career.
“I had about five or six eye surgeries. I do know a little bit about this,” Bisping said on his YouTube channel. “So real quick, let’s talk about this. Tom’s going to need, apparently, eye surgery. It will probably just be a minor thing like a realignment of the tendons but things can go wrong. Joe [Rogan] is absolutely correct, 100 percent, when he says things can go wrong.
“My retina was reattached after it was detached against Vitor Belfort and then it re-detached and then they fixed it again and then I got glaucoma. Because once you start messing around with the eyes, in fact just like any part of your body, once you start going in and messing around with it, it’s never the same again. It’s never quite as strong and things can go wrong.”
The repeated issues with his eye effectively forced Bisping to retire from competition. He now wears a prosthetic to cover the damaged eye as he continues working full-time on television as an analyst and color commentator for the UFC.
But looking back now, Bisping acknowledges that his decision to come back too soon from his own eye issues only exacerbated the problems in the long run. That’s why he’s cautioning Aspinall to take the time he needs to recover before booking another fight because Bisping found out the hard way how much you can suffer otherwise.
“The one thing you can’t do with an eye is rush back,” Bisping said. “That is the one big lesson that I learned. Because I did that. I rushed back too soon. I rushed back to sparring. I rushed back to competition and I never saw out of that eye again.
“So Tom has got to take his time. If he’s having surgery, he’s definitely going to be out for at least a few months.”
Bisping also took aim at the critics claiming that Aspinall is avoiding that rematch with Gane by milking the eye injury that’s leading to surgery.
“Some people out there, they don’t know what they’re talking about,” Bisping said. “This is the heavyweight champion of the world. He’s not a duck. He’s not trying to get out of a fight. He wants to come back and kick Ciryl Gane’s ass. He put that in a tweet recently. The man’s pissed off and I can’t wait for the comeback.”
Bisping admitted he doesn’t know the exact procedure that Aspinall is having done but no matter what’s happening, there’s no such thing as minor surgery where vision is involved.
As much as medical science has advanced in recent years, Bisping still couldn’t save his own vision and he certainly hopes that’s not what happens to Aspinall.
“They did their best but ultimately I did go blind,” Bisping said. “But for Tom, fingers crossed, he’ll be OK.”
