Eddie Hearn does not want UFC heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall to rush his return.
Aspinall (15-3 MMA, 8-1 UFC) has been sidelined ever since undergoing double surgery after getting poked in the eyes by Ciryl Gane in their title fight at UFC 321 last October.
Since then, Gane (14-2 MMA, 11-2 UFC) finished Alex Pereira to claim the interim belt at UFC Freedom 250 in June and is expected to unify the belt with Aspinall next. However, Aspinall's new manager Hearn doesn't have a concrete answer on when that might be.
"I'd like to say true," Hearn told Ariel Helwani on Aspinall returning this year. "The problem is if he's actually medically ready to fight. Not in terms of how he feels, but in terms of what the commission or what the medical would say.
He's training, he's ready, he's eager to come back. But you can’t afford, with that kind of injury, to make a poor decision and come back too early because it cannot just cost you your health, it can cost you your eyesight."
Hearn is disgusted by the amount of scrutiny Aspinall has gotten since the injury, and those undermining the consequences from it.
"As frustrating as the injury has been, I'm actually quite happy that people are getting to see the severity of the injury, because I actually couldn't believe the stick that he got at the time," Hearn continued. "I know that he'd had what, four operations now? And it's an ongoing issue, and it can't be nice going into a sport like that with an issue like that. But he's a tough man, and he's desperate to return."
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Eddie Hearn hopes Tom Aspinall cleared to fight in 2026 – but he's unsure
