Sean O’Malley has spoken out in defense of Tom Aspinall after the abrupt ending to UFC 321. The heavyweight title fight between Aspinall and Ciryl Gane ended in the first round after an accidental eye poke left the champion unable to see and unable to continue.
While the fight was ruled a no contest, criticism quickly followed online and from several fighters, including Chael Sonnen and Anthony Smith, who suggested Aspinall should have pushed through the injury. Veteran Jim Miller, however, said more attention should be on Gane for committing the foul.
On his YouTube channel, O’Malley said he was stunned that anyone would question Aspinall’s courage.
“A lot of people in the MMA space talking about how it was disappointing Tom didn’t continue,” O’Malley said. “You’re the UFC heavyweight champion of the world, you just got poked in the eye very bad, you’re fighting a very dangerous kickboxer. It is hard to stand in front of a human being with that high level of skills and fight him with two eyes. Now you’re going to get illegally poked in the eye. It wasn’t a right hand that hit, boom, broke his orbital, eye swells up, you can’t see. That’s different. You get punched in the eye, a legal shot, your eye swells up, you can’t see, you fight through that. Tom Aspinall would fight through that. He wouldn’t get punched, eye swells up, and go, ‘I’m done. I can’t see.’”
“You can’t question Tom’s toughness”
O’Malley explained that an illegal foul and a legal strike are two completely different things, and the risks involved go far beyond toughness.
“It’s different because he got poked in the eye. That is an illegal strike. It was an accident, 100 percent believe it was an accident. I don’t think Ciryl did it on purpose. Ciryl was getting the better of Tom. But to question Tom’s toughness is insane. No one wanted that more than Tom Aspinall. He wanted to fight. He wanted to fight more than we wanted to watch him fight, so it’s hard. You can’t question Tom’s toughness. You just can’t.”
The fight ended with less than half a minute left in Round 1. Gane appeared to be having early success, but because the round was never completed, no scorecards were filed. Many wondered how the remaining four rounds would have gone had the foul not occurred.
O’Malley is confident that Aspinall, known for his composure and speed for a man his size, would have kept going if his vision allowed.
“I’ve been poked in the eye before,” O’Malley said. “Not in a fight, but in practice, been poked in the eye. Boom. Whoa. I’m done. I’m not going to continue to practice. Obviously, you can’t see, it’s uncomfortable, it hurts, it’s scary. You don’t know if it’s going to come back. You don’t know if you’re going to be able to see it again. That really is a possibility, you get poked in the eye and you can’t see ever again, let alone now you’re trying to fight this guy who’s a massive elite athlete who’s been popping you with a freaking jab. Now you have one eye because of an illegal strike. It’s unfortunate, but you just can’t question Tom’s toughness on that.”
Calls for a rematch
O’Malley added that Aspinall’s resilience isn’t up for debate and that the English champion would never stop fighting from pain alone.
“He gets punched in the eye, eye swells up, he’s not going to quit fighting, he’s not going to stop fighting. You could probably break Tom’s arm and he’s going to keep f*cking fighting. So I just don’t think it’s fair to question his toughness at that moment. Again, no one wanted to fight or be in there more than Tom.”
Following the controversial finish, UFC CEO Dana White said he intends to rebook the heavyweight title bout, though no official date has been confirmed. Aspinall’s recovery timeline also remains uncertain while he continues medical evaluations.
O’Malley on the replay: “Both eyes — he got fingered”
O’Malley noted that once slow-motion replays were shown, it became clear how severe the foul was.
“At first when I saw it, it didn’t look that bad,” O’Malley said. “Then they zoomed in real close up, both eyes, he got fingered. Two in the eyes. One of his fingers, like, it was deep.”
He added that Gane’s early success made the situation even more frustrating because fans were robbed of what could have been one of the best heavyweight fights of the year.
“Ciryl Gane was looking so good in that first round,” O’Malley continued. “Tom Aspinall’s nose was bleeding, Ciryl was landing with that jab. I’m not a heavyweight, you go in there and a lot of the times at heavyweight you see guys not really engage too much because it takes one punch, especially from two big punchers like that, and Tom was kind of coming forward, Ciryl was landing beautiful jabs circling around. He won that round. Both those guys for being heavyweights can move so well on their feet. God, that was going to be such a sweet fight and I thought Tom was going to out there and kind of run through Ciryl. That was going to be a very interesting fight. I guess running it back makes sense.” via MMAFighting
