Tom Aspinall and Ciryl Gane ended UFC 321 in a disappointing no-contest after an eye poke delivered to the heavyweight champion left him unable to continue.
In the aftermath of the fight, Aspinall lashed out at a chorus of boos from the Abu Dhabi crowd while he also faced criticism that perhaps he didn’t want to restart the fight after Gane was doing far better than most expected. UFC CEO Dana White certainly didn’t make that kind of accusation, but he also knows it was ultimately Aspinall’s call
on whether or not he ultimately continued in the fight.
“I feel the way everybody feels. Great showing, shitty ending,” White said at the UFC 321 post-fight press conference. “I think that after the [Jon] Jones fight, a lot of people wrote Ciryl Gane off. He looked damn good tonight. It looked like we were in for a few rounds, and it was going to be a good fight.
“I can’t make people fight. If I want to put together a fight, I can’t make people fight. You definitely can’t make somebody continue if they feel they’ve been injured. Only Tom knows what happened. Could he see? Couldn’t he see? Could he continue? Only he knows that.”
As soon as the eye poke happened, Aspinall received medical attention and kept holding a wet towel up to his face as he attempted to recover.
Unfortunately as time passed it was clear that Aspinall was saying that his vision was completely compromised, which effectively ended the fight. With the result as a no-contest, White admitted that there’s really no other choice but to run it back, even if that’s not what the UFC was obviously hoping for after the heavyweight title already sat dormant for over a year.
“Total pain in the ass but yes [we’ll book the rematch],” White confirmed. “They’re both in shape, other than whatever’s wrong with his eye. Both guys are not injured. As soon as possible.”
White revealed that Aspinall was transported to a local hospital as soon as the fight was over so he obviously didn’t make any appearance at the press conference to address his injury.
That said, White admits he was really impressed with Gane’s showing and if there’s any positive takeaway from the fight, it’s that the odds in the rematch should be much, much closer.
“I think that because of the Jon Jones fight, I think everybody was sleeping on Ciryl Gane and kind of wrote him off,” White said after Gane lost to Jones in 2023. “I feel like, I’m sure in his camp he was training like an animal for this fight and it’s unfortunately that it ended the way that it did.
“I think that there probably will be a lot more interest in the rematch after they saw he had Tom bloodied up. Tom didn’t want to continue in the fight. The rematch is very interesting.”
