{"id":254398,"date":"2025-11-01T01:13:09","date_gmt":"2025-11-01T01:13:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/254398\/"},"modified":"2025-11-01T01:13:09","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T01:13:09","slug":"muhammad-advises-aspinall-to-stop-caring-about-ufc-321-eye-poke-talk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/254398\/","title":{"rendered":"Muhammad advises Aspinall to \u2018stop caring\u2019 about UFC 321 eye poke talk"},"content":{"rendered":"

Former UFC welterweight champion, Belal Muhammad, knows all about unfair eye pokes<\/a> and he\u2019s here to let UFC heavyweight champion, Tom Aspinall, know that everything is going to be okay.<\/p>\n

As you may have heard, Aspinall\u2019s recent heavyweight title defense against Ciryl Gane at UFC 321 earlier this month completely went up in flames<\/a>. Aspinall ended up suffering two eye pokes<\/a> at the hands of Gane and wasn\u2019t able to continue (see HERE<\/a>), resulting in a disappointing No Contest for all parties involved. The eye pokes obviously weren\u2019t Aspinall\u2019s fault, but fellow fighters and angry fight fans are partially blaming the UFC champion for not sucking it up and letting the main event play out.<\/p>\n

Muhammad, who has grown accustomed to fending off haters throughout most of his UFC career, recently discussed Aspinall\u2019s eye poke issue and the backlash he\u2019s receiving. \u201cRemember the Name\u201d sympathized with the UFC heavyweight king and advised him to stop caring about what anyone thinks.<\/p>\n

\u201cTom Aspinall, you\u2019re starting to feel what I felt. I\u2019ve been there,\u201d said Muhammad via his YouTube channel<\/a>. \u201cPoked in the eye, wasn\u2019t on you, the world and the fans are blaming you. Word of advice: Stop caring! Stop caring what these people are saying, stop trying to prove yourself. Because even with the proof that you\u2019re showing of going to the doctor, showing you getting your eyes checked, a lot of doctors are saying \u2018Oh it was nothing you\u2019ll be fine,\u2019 so it\u2019s not really helping the case.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn the end. Do I think you did it purposely? That you looked for a way out? No. When you have a finger in your eye and you can\u2019t see, can\u2019t open it. After the Leon [Edwards] fight I couldn\u2019t open it for like 30 minutes, it was one of the hardest things\u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cIt wasn\u2019t so much the pain, I thought it was over and the doctors would say \u2018Don\u2019t go back to the sport and stay away from it\u2019,\u201d Muhammad continued. \u201cLosing an opportunity. But Tom, you just have to stop caring\u2026just embrace the boos.\u201d<\/p>\n

Aspinall, who didn\u2019t suffer any major damage to either eye, is expected to return to action sometime in early 2026. We\u2019ll have to wait and see if UFC 321\u2019s backlash carries over into next year and Aspinall finds himself playing a heel role.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former UFC welterweight champion, Belal Muhammad, knows all about unfair eye pokes and he\u2019s here to let UFC…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":254399,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,40762,785,85,1396],"class_list":{"0":"post-254398","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254398","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=254398"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/254398\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/254399"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=254398"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=254398"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=254398"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}