Ciryl Gane attacks mentally fragile Tom Aspinall
Ciryl Gane isn’t ready to let go of his feud with Tom Aspinall.
We are approaching the first anniversary of the Gane vs. Aspinall fight at UFC 321. The night when the greatest heavyweight in the world was going to be crowned. For the Brit, it was the night to silence all the doubters and put a stamp on the division and his legacy. But none of that came to pass after an eye poke ended the bout prematurely.
Since then, the pair have been in verbal warfare. Amid the devastating news that Tom Aspinall’s recovery isn’t going as planned, forcing him to vacate his title, Ciryl Gane refuses to let their feud die. During a recent interview, Gane labeled Aspinall mentally fragile for his reaction to the eye poke.
“We knew he was a little mentally fragile,” Gane said. “Brother, you got poked in the eye. You have the right to stop. That’s your right. But you don’t need to do everything you did. Honestly, when my finger went into his eye, my feeling was that it wasn’t forceful at all. It looked forceful, but it didn’t feel forceful to me.”
Eye pokes are an unfortunate regularity in mixed martial arts. Due to the open finger gloves, there have been countless times fights have taken momentary breaks or ended entirely due to an accidental illegal poke.
Unimpressed by Tom Aspinall’s reaction, Ciryl Gane recounted a time he had been eye-poked. Fighting for interim heavyweight gold back in 2021, Gane collided with fan-favorite Derrick Lewis in the curtain closer of UFC 265. According to the Frenchman, he was caught by Lewis’ finger, resulting in him seeing double for several minutes. Gane would go on to beat Lewis that night.
“It happened to me before, actually, against Derrick Lewis when I won the belt,” Gane added. “I saw double for 3 or 4 minutes. He poked me in the eye, and my vision hadn’t recovered, and I kept fighting like that. I didn’t complain about it. These things happen, you know what I mean.”
Listen to Ciryl Gane hit out at Tom Aspinall and more in the video below.