Tom Aspinall undoubtedly became one of the most popular fighters on the UFC roster after he won an interim title on short notice, defended that belt without blinking while Jon Jones waited for an aging Stipe Miocic and put on a series of blistering performances where he laid waste to every heavyweight in his path.<\/p>\n
But his first title defense as undisputed champion could not have gone much worse. A competitive opening round against Ciryl Gane ended after Aspinall suffered a brutal eye poke and with his vision compromised, he couldn\u2019t continue and the fight was stopped.<\/p>\n
Despite documenting the severity of the injury, which is going to require surgery, Aspinall has somehow become public enemy No. 1 while fending off accusations that he used the eye poke as an excuse not to continue a fight he was potentially losing. Aspinall\u2019s longtime friend and teammate Modestas Bukauskas, who next competes at UFC 324, admits the whole ordeal really bothered him, especially knowing all the ways the British heavyweight has stepped up whenever needed.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen you see that stuff online, I just felt so bad for Tom,\u201d Bukauskas told MMA Fighting. \u201cHe\u2019s been a consummate company man. He took a fight on what two weeks\u2019 notice against [Sergei] Pavlovich. He\u2019s been waiting on the sidelines for [Jon] Jones. He\u2019s been doing everything for this company and he\u2019s put on some amazing performances. He\u2019s been finishing people within the first round. It\u2019s like people are quick to forget all the things he\u2019s done and because he got eye poked, it\u2019s like have any of you been poked like that in the eye?<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been poked in the eye pretty bad as well and my vision was blurry for ages. I\u2019m talking it was a whole year one time. I kept on getting poked constantly in the eye and especially with that one, like everyone was saying, it was pretty much knuckle deep in the eye. I feel like it\u2019s very unfair of people to jump to hate on him because he couldn\u2019t continue. What if that happened to you? I don\u2019t think you\u2019d be fighting either.\u201d<\/p>\n
From spending so much time with Aspinall in the gym, Bukauskas obviously understands the UFC heavyweight champion\u2019s demeanor, especially when it comes to defending his title.<\/p>\n
He knows without a doubt that Aspinall is willing to fight through almost anything but competing with impaired vision against a lethal striker like Gane just makes no sense.<\/p>\n
\u201cSince he\u2019s the champion of the world, his decision, he needs to be able to go out there and he\u2019s fighting one of the other best guys in the world,\u201d Bukauskas said. \u201cCiryl Gane\u2019s very fast, uses his range, obviously he\u2019s a tricky kickboxer. You can\u2019t go out there and fight when you\u2019re compromised, especially your sight, which is the main thing you need against a guy like that.<\/p>\n
\u201cI thought it was absolutely horrible the backlash that he got. But on the same side, I feel like it\u2019s giving him another log to his fire when he does come back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since the injury occurred, Aspinall revealed that he\u2019s undergoing surgery to repair the damage done but he hasn\u2019t been able to set a timeline on when he might be able to compete again.<\/p>\n
Bukauskas didn\u2019t need that proof to know Aspinall\u2019s eye was in bad shape after that fight but he can\u2019t understand how anyone would doubt the injury at this point.<\/p>\n
\u201cDude has to get surgery,\u201d Bukauskas said. \u201cHe has to get injections and all sorts of other things because his eye is still not better. I know one of my friends got a retinal detachment. Eyes are a very tricky thing. To recover from that and to recovery fully from that is going to take a really long time.\u201d<\/p>\n
If there\u2019s an upside to this entire ordeal, Bukauskas expects Aspinall to use the injury and the backlash he\u2019s faced as motivation to not only return to action but show up better than ever before.<\/p>\n
Aspinall may have lost some fair-weather fans along the way but he\u2019s going to take all that negativity and spit it back out when he returns to defend his title next.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know Tom\u2019s just going to be using this as fuel,\u201d Bukauskas said. \u201cBecause he\u2019s seen how quick people are jumping all over him in terms of supporting him and now jumping all over him and creating negative stuff about him, which is absolutely horrible. But it kind of gives him a chip on his shoulder.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I feel for any other heavyweight to have to face him when he comes back because he\u2019s going to come back with another level of intensity and a lot more to prove and it\u2019s going to make him even more dangerous. I think this is just part of his story that\u2019s just going to make him come out with even better performances and be even more dangerous. I feel for him that he has to go through this but at the same time, I know it\u2019s only going to make him even more dangerous when he comes back.\u201d<\/p>\n
Bukauskas knows from personal experience that Aspinall is a ferocious competitor on his worst day but having his integrity questions is only going to make him that much more determined to destroy whoever\u2019s in his path when he comes back.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t want to rattle the bull,\u201d Bukauskas said about Aspinall. \u201cWhenever he comes back, expect him to come out all guns blazing and even be [sharper]. I even notice when you\u2019re sparring him sometimes because obviously he\u2019s an extremely lovely guy and we\u2019re all trying to take care of each other but we spar with a little bit of intensity sometimes and you can just see it in his eyes.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s a switch and you know he could put your lights out. To have that amplified, to think about that being amplified now, that is going to be one scary dude.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tom Aspinall undoubtedly became one of the most popular fighters on the UFC roster after he won an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":325397,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,85,787,1396],"class_list":{"0":"post-423601","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-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-ufc","15":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423601","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=423601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/423601\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/325397"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=423601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=423601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=423601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}