UFC veteran Jim Miller has not minced words about Ciryl Gane’s accidental eye poke on Tom Aspinall at UFC 321, insisting that fighters need to be held accountable for their actions.
Aspinall retained his heavyweight title against Gane over the weekend after the bout was ruled a no-contest when the Brit suffered a nasty eye poke in the first round.
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Miller, who has notched up 43 appearances in the Octagon without ever poking an opponent’s eyes, says the sport needs to take action against offenders.
“I am very agitated, and I think you know exactly where this is going,” Miller said in a post to social media.
“I’m going to share two screenshots of the unified MMA rules at the end of this, and you tell me what the f**k is going on.
“… if only stupid, dumb, professional MMA fighters could control our fingers, right?
“Eye gouging, eye poking, is a foul. And if that foul is done with intention, then the fighter that commits the foul gets disqualified if the fight can’t continue.
“In most cases, there’s some silly s**t in there as well. But it is up to the referee, and probably the commission on the side of the Octagon, to decide whether it was intentional or not. And it never seems to be f**king intentional.
“I’ve had my vision permanently affected by eye pokes. It doesn’t affect my ability to fight or see anything close, really. It’s more quality of life stuff – it’s much harder to see a target with my bow nowadays. Boo hoo. [But] the only way we’re going to stop this thing is if the fighters that are committing the foul actually end up getting punished for the foul.
Britainâs Tom Aspinall leaves the ring after being hit in the eye while fighting Franceâs Ciryl Gane during their UFC heavyweight title bout at UFC 321 at Etihad Arena in Abu Dhabi early on October 26, 2025. (Photo by Giuseppe CACACE / AFP)Source: AFP
“That’s the only way this is going to stop. It’s not a glove issue; it is an issue of culture and the fighters.”
Despite replays showing Gane going “knuckle deep” into both eyes of Aspinall late in the first round, many fight fans on social media have slammed Aspinall’s decision to not continue fighting.
Miller says that the victims of these fouls shouldn’t be copping the blame.
“The person who was poked in the eye is always the p***y, is always the bad guy, is always the loser for not choosing to continue,” Miller said.
“It’s never the person that commits the foul that gets looked at in a negative light, no. They’re never punished. No, no, no. It’s the other p***y that decides, ‘Hey, I can’t f**king see, now. And now I’m the bad guy, for telling the doctors that I can’t see because my opponent couldn’t close his fist.’
“This aggravates me, clearly. The refs have had the power to stop this for years, and they have chosen not to.
“I’ve known a lot of you for a long f**king time, and I believe there are a lot of good people that are associated with this sport, but this is nonsense. It is absolute f**king nonsense.
“Points get taken away way quicker for groin shots! We have quality protectors on the market; there are high-quality f*cking cups on the market. I’ve been lifted off the ground wearing a metal Thai cup with nothing, didn’t feel nothing, and the other person is moving.
“The eye poke stuff is all on the person who throws the eye poke. All of it. That’s easy! It’s f**king easy!”
Miller holds several records in the UFC, including being the athlete with the most fights and most wins in the promotion’s history.
He believes that if he can manage to avoid fouling opponents, so can everybody else.
“I’ve shared the list before,” Miller said.
“I’ve shared the list of the guys who have been in the octagon the longest, and none of them have poked somebody in the eye. None of them! If we spent the most time in the octagon, throwing punches at opponents at the highest level of the sport, shouldn’t there be some eye pokes coming from guys like myself or Frankie [Edgar], or [Raphael] dos Anjos, or Clay [Guida], or all these other guys? Shouldn’t that be the way it goes?
“The more time you spend doing this, the more eye pokes you have because they’re incidental? They’re just part of the sport? It’s not. It’s not a f*cking accident! It’s not a f**king accident. You can control it. All you have to f**king do is penalize the motherf**ker that’s doing it.”