Tom Aspinall was quickly becoming one of the most popular fighters on the UFC roster after he became undisputed heavyweight champion, but he\u2019s suddenly facing criticism after he was unable to continue following an eye poke delivered by Ciryl Gane at UFC 321<\/p>\n
The disappointing conclusion was undoubtedly a tough pill to swallow, especially for the fans in attendance in Abu Dhabi and those who paid to watch the pay-per-view, but Aspinall wasn\u2019t to blame. In fact, UFC legend Matt Brown blasted any criticism aimed at Aspinall for saying he couldn\u2019t fight after the eye poke, which resulted in the main event being declared a no-contest.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve really been disgusted with that narrative that you\u2019re talking about where everybody\u2019s blaming Tom Aspinall,\u201d Brown said on the latest episode of The Fighter vs. The Writer. \u201cWhere did this come from? How did he do anything wrong? People saying \u2018oh should have just sucked it up with one eye.\u2019 Get the f*ck out of here. What are you talking about? We\u2019re not in a death match. This isn\u2019t f*cking like Street Fighter. It\u2019s not a video game. This is a professional competition. He wants to win and give himself the best chance of winning.<\/p>\n
\u201cFor one, I think Tom Aspinall would have continued had there been the right circumstance. Like if his life was on the line or something but he\u2019s like \u2018I can\u2019t see out of my eye.\u2019 He probably couldn\u2019t see out of his other eye very well either. The one that got knuckle f*cking deep. It\u2019s like live to fight another day. Try again. If this was anything other than this match, I don\u2019t think it wouldn\u2019t even be talked about that way. This particular match, the circumstances just added up where now Tom Aspinall is an easy target.\u201d<\/p>\n
Fighters getting fouled and not being able to continue isn\u2019t a common occurrence in combat sports but lately it seems like those athletes are being punished in the court of public opinion.<\/p>\n
Aljamain Sterling dealt with intense hatred after he got blasted with an illegal knee in his title fight against Petr Yan, which forced a stoppage. The result ended up crowning Sterling as champion, but he was constantly accused of quitting in the fight rather than moving forward after it appeared Yan was cruising towards a victory.<\/p>\n
The same goes for Belal Muhammad after he endured a gruesome eye poke in his first fight against Leon Edwards. Afterwards, Muhammad faced criticism that he should have continued and only stopped because he lost the first round and the momentum was in Edwards\u2019 corner.<\/p>\n
Obviously both of those fighters vehemently disagreed and ironically Sterling went onto defeat Yan in the rematch, and the same goes for Muhammad when he finally met Edwards again. Maybe that same thing happens when Aspinall runs it back with Gane, but Brown knows that the reigning UFC heavyweight champion made the best choice for his career even if he\u2019s being publicly crucified for not pushing forward with one eye this past Saturday.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat sucks is he\u2019s almost in a lose-lose situation at that point,\u201d Brown said about Aspinall. \u201cThe only saving grace would have been if went out with one eye and ended up beating the shit out of Ciryl Gane.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf any other situation happens, it\u2019s a loss for him. [If] he lost, they\u2019re not going to be talking about him getting eye poked and couldn\u2019t see and that\u2019s why he lost.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brown also responded to comments from analysts Chael Sonnen and Anthony Smith during the UFC 321 post-fight show where both admitted \u201cyou\u2019ve got to fight with one eye at times.\u201d<\/a> While neither flat out accused Aspinall of seeking a way out of the fight, the idea that fighters have to push forward after being egregiously fouled was definitely discussed.<\/p>\n \u201cI love both those guys,\u201d Brown said. \u201cI almost hold back saying my real feelings, because I do actually respect and love both Anthony and Chael, especially Anthony, we\u2019ve trained together and we\u2019re friends. When I see Anthony, I really like the guy. I think he\u2019s really smart, and I think he\u2019s a great analyst, by the way. I just think they\u2019re way off base here.<\/p>\n \u201cThe fact that they said it straight away on the post-fight show, I don\u2019t know if they didn\u2019t put any thought into it or if it was just an immediate reaction. Because there\u2019s probably a little bit of recency bias where they\u2019re just disappointed the fight didn\u2019t happen. In our heads, we all felt the same way. What about the people that paid $80 to watch it? They\u2019re all like \u2018I wanted to see a god*mn main event, I don\u2019t care about your eye. I care about my $80.\u2019 I get that recency bias, but you have to look at this realistically, too. Ciryl Gane\u2019s finger went knuckle deep into his f*cking eye. This is not a complicated thing. The guy taking a foul getting punished, especially when it\u2019s a f*cking eye poke?\u201d<\/p>\n The result in the fight already has UFC CEO Dana White declaring plans to book a rematch once Aspinall is cleared to compete again. That means Gane still has a chance to dethrone Aspinall and finish what got started at UFC 321.<\/p>\n That said, Brown argues that the foul that Gane committed should have probably already cost him a loss on his record even if the UFC ultimately decides to run it back with Aspinall again.<\/p>\n In his opinion, Brown doesn\u2019t buy the idea that fouls deemed \u201cunintentional\u201d often result in no point deductions issued by the referee or in this instance, the fight is declared a no-contest.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are in a sport now, not just a street fight. It is an actual sport,\u201d Brown said. \u201cThere are rules. When one guy breaks the rules, the other guy should not deal with the punishment for that. It shouldn\u2019t be a no-contest. It should be a disqualification.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you want to set a standard, which is what rules are meant for, to have standards, then you follow that standard and you make a DQ. It doesn\u2019t mean [Ciryl Gane] shouldn\u2019t get another rematch. I think it would be fair to get another rematch but he should get a DQ here.\u201d<\/p>\n Listen to new episodes of The Fighter vs. The Writer every Tuesday with audio only versions of the podcast available on Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Google Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a>, and iHeartRadio<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tom Aspinall was quickly becoming one of the most popular fighters on the UFC roster after he became…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":246873,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,701,638,37036,329,82,640,702],"class_list":{"0":"post-246872","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-latest-news","12":"tag-mma","13":"tag-mmaf-podcast-network","14":"tag-podcasts","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-ufc","17":"tag-ufc-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246872\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246873"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}