{"id":333563,"date":"2025-12-07T21:24:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-07T21:24:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/333563\/"},"modified":"2025-12-07T21:24:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-07T21:24:08","slug":"white-tries-to-defuse-aspinall-tensions-i-wasnt-saying-anything-negative","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/333563\/","title":{"rendered":"White tries to defuse Aspinall tensions: \u2018I wasn\u2019t saying anything negative\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dana White has no idea why Tom Aspinall isn\u2019t happy with him following the fallout from UFC 321. That event saw the heavyweight champion suffer a double eye poke No Contest<\/a> against Ciryl Gane, and it still has Aspinall seeing red over a month later.<\/p>\n

Aspinall faced a lot of backlash<\/a> for being unable to continue in Abu Dhabi, and he feels White\u2019s casual comments regarding the condition of his eyes only reinforced the perception that he quit.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was very disappointed,\u201d he said on the Ariel Helwani Show. \u201cVery disappointed. Definitely didn\u2019t help with the cause \u2026 He started giving updates that there\u2019s nothing wrong with my eye, when that isn\u2019t the case. I\u2019ve done a lot for the UFC, so yeah, disappointed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201dI get it,\u201d White said at the UFC 323 post-fight press conference when asked about Aspinall\u2019s mood<\/a> following the incident. \u201cI don\u2019t remember exactly what I said. What did I say? I think his eyes are OK? I know Tom said I haven\u2019t even talked to him and all this stuff. But we have people all over him right now, checking up on him, making sure he\u2019s good, does he need any help or any specialists.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m no doctor. I\u2019m just saying what I\u2019ve heard. It wasn\u2019t said in a way [to be detrimental], \u2018I said I think he\u2019s fine.\u2019 It wasn\u2019t like that. I said I think Tom\u2019s eyes are good, he\u2019s going to take some time, heal and come back. That\u2019s all I said. I wasn\u2019t saying anything negative towards him.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that things can be taken out of context or he didn\u2019t see what I said because I don\u2019t even know what the f\u2014k I said. But never once did I say anything negative about him or in a derogatory way. I\u2019m sure he\u2019s upset and he\u2019s fired up. He\u2019ll get better and we\u2019ll get him back in there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hopefully cooler heads will prevail as the UFC heavyweight division has gone through<\/a> too much over the past five years<\/a> to have another heavyweight champion feuding with the promotion. As of now Aspinall is on the sidelines unable to train<\/a> until a doctor clears him. That could be a while, so for those hoping to see Aspinall vs. Gane 2 soon? You might want to prepare for that not being the case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dana White has no idea why Tom Aspinall isn\u2019t happy with him following the fallout from UFC 321.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":333564,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85,1396],"class_list":{"0":"post-333563","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-mma","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333563","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=333563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/333563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/333564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=333563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=333563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=333563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}