{"id":378457,"date":"2025-12-31T02:16:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-31T02:16:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/378457\/"},"modified":"2025-12-31T02:16:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-31T02:16:08","slug":"tom-aspinall-detractors-blasted-by-prominent-mma-heavyweight-champion-post-ufc-321","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/378457\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom Aspinall detractors blasted by prominent MMA heavyweight champion post-UFC 321"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tom Aspinall has drawn criticisms from some in combat sports circles for the last couple of months, and a notable heavyweight champ in mixed martial arts has weighed in with his thoughts on eye poke gate. As Fleury continues to build his legacy as a heavyweight champion in mixed martial arts with a first-round stoppage of former Oktagon MMA heavyweight champ and UFC vet Martin Buday<\/a>, he stands tall heading into 2026 after the dust just settled on Oktagon 81.<\/p>\n

Fleury has also previously found himself calling out other champions in the sport with a previous call out of KSW titleholder Phil De Fries transpiring earlier this year. De Fries is also notably part of that Tom Aspinall team. With some fans and fighters alike saying some less-than-kind things about the Tom Aspinall UFC 321 eye poke controversy, with some positing that he took the easy way out in his fight with Ciryl Gane after the no-contest verdict was dealt out in their bout.<\/p>\n

As a prominent MMA heavyweight titleholder holding the Oktagon MMA strap, when asked if he has any particular thoughts on the Aspinall eye poke discourse post-Gane fight in October, Fleury said [via Bowks Talking Bouts<\/a>],<\/p>\n

\u201cYeah, I think to be honest Tom earned the benefit of the doubt. You know, it\u2019s undeniable the guy\u2019s the best heavyweight in the world right now in my eyes. Like he\u2019s gone in there and performed against everybody. Do I think it was possible to continue? It looked like it, but who am I? I\u2019m not in there. I can\u2019t see what he can see. You know, I don\u2019t know how badly hurt his eye was.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt didn\u2019t look like that significant [of] a poke. But at the same time, anybody who\u2019s saying they can be certain about what Tom Aspinall could see at that point is full of s**t. So, you give the guy the benefit of the doubt. His performances up to now have been incredible. I think it\u2019s like how quickly will that fight be rebooked and I\u2019m really excited about that fight.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Tom Aspinall detractors are \u201cfull of s**t\u201d, per Fleury<\/p>\n

As the OKMMA two-division champion further espoused his thoughts on the Tom Aspinall errant eye poke discourse, Will Fleury continued [via Bowks Talking Bouts<\/a>],<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, I was going like I think everybody was watching it at the time felt a little bit robbed and because of that people reacted emotionally. They were like, \u201cOh, he\u2019s a p***y. He\u2019s full of s**t.\u201d Like, \u201cOh, his eyes\u2019 fine.\u201d You know, you don\u2019t know. That\u2019s reality and you\u2019re full of s**t if you say you do know because nobody could know except Tom Aspinall.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think him going back in and performing again and the type of performance we see is going to tell us a lot. To me, look at how good the guy\u2019s been for a significant period of time. Look at some of the other guys he\u2019s beaten and the manner in which he\u2019s beaten them. You got to give that guy the benefit of the doubt.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tom Aspinall has drawn criticisms from some in combat sports circles for the last couple of months, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":327248,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,638,23733,82,1972,640,14894,38885],"class_list":["post-378457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-oktagon-mma","tag-sports","tag-tom-aspinall","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-321","tag-will-fleury"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378457","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=378457"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378457\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/327248"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}