UFC heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall is getting two surgeries done on his eyes to fix the damage caused by Ciryl Gane back in October at UFC 321.
Aspinall was set to defend the undisputed heavyweight title for the first time after winning the interim title in 2023 and defending it in 2024. After wasting half of 2025 waiting for Jon Jones, Tom was finally upgraded to full champ in June, and booked to fight four months later against Gane. That bout lasted all of four and a half minutes before Gane stuck
his hand in Aspinall’s face, badly poking both eyes.
The fight was ruled a ‘No Contest’ after Aspinall couldn’t continue, but at least doctors in Abu Dhabi said there was no serious damage! Alas, another set of different, better doctors in the UK took a closer look and found significant bilateral ocular trauma causing Brown’s syndrome, which makes it difficult to fully move the eye.
The damage is so serious that it will take two surgeries to fix the issues. Tacked onto the tail end of a footwork tutorial on his YouTube channel, Aspinall — sporting some ugly ass glasses – confirmed the plan was to fight Gane again in 2026 after those surgeries to fix his eyes.
“By by the time this is going out, I’ll probably have had one surgery on one side already,” Aspinall revealed. “Next surgery is coming mid-January. So we’re working towards getting back, and that’s the plan.”
After years of being forced to say nothing by the UFC as they attempted to wrangle Jon Jones into a fight, Aspinall is keeping his fans well informed on what’s going on. We’d expect an update following the surgery, and hopefully we’ll know by the start of February when he’ll be able to compete again.
