The fallout from UFC 321 has been as heavy as the combined weight of the event’s headliner title clash. Newly crowned heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall returned Saturday in Abu Dhabi to kick off his reign on a positive note against perennial contender Ciryl Gane. Or that was the plan, anyway.
Unfortunately for Aspinall, he suffered a brutal double eye-poke late in Round 1, which resulted in the bout being declared a no-contest and sparked widespread debate throughout the MMA community. Although the fight lasted only a single round, Gane came out sharp and was generally considered to have won the opening frame, fueling critics who claimed that Aspinall took the easy way out.
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In the wake of the controversy, UFC Hall of Famer Chael Sonnen weighed in on the outcome Monday on “The Ariel Helwani Show,” coming to the defense of the champ. For Sonnen, the key point everyone seems to be missing is an easy one: That Aspinall was ultimately the victim in Saturday’s scenario.
“Tom did nothing wrong,” Sonnen told Uncrowned. “Ciryl caused the action, and I also find myself looking at the referee. I also feel that the no-contest is a cop-out.
“We only have two rules in this sport. You don’t bite the guy and you don’t poke the son of a b**** in his eye. That’s the only rules that we have that can tie back to 1993, and when one of those is violated, I am like you — there is not room for this discussion. There is not room for [whether a foul was] incidental and accidental, particularly when it was a double [eye-poke].”
MMA’s rules and the general lack of foul-enforcement consistency from officials have been major topics throughout 2025. From Sonnen’s point of view, Gane is the one who came out ahead despite being the fighter who broke the rules, and that doesn’t make much sense.
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“Ciryl poked Tom twice, and now we don’t get resolution,” Sonnen said. “Now Ciryl, who did a bad act, has another world title fight to look forward to because there was no resolution. The no-contest is a cop out. Make a call. Was this allowed or not? If it’s allowed, we have a TKO against Tom. If it’s not allowed, we have a disqualification, in this case against Ciryl.”
Sonnen’s fellow UFC veteran and broadcast partner, Anthony Smith, found himself in a similar situation in 2019 when then-champion Jon Jones illegally kneed Smith to the point of a point deduction. Had Smith claimed he was unable to continue in the fight, he would’ve won the UFC title via disqualification.
Sonnen and Smith both caught some flak this past weekend for their post-fight takes on the analyst desk, claiming Aspinall should have pushed through his temporary blindness. In hindsight, Sonnen agrees that the footage clipped from their ESPN post-show came off the wrong way.
“[Smith and I] did not think that Tom found a way out or was ducking out,” Sonnen assured.
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“What Anthony and I were speaking to is in the fight, one guy’s trying to stop your breathing by breaking your nose, you’ve got to learn to push through that. One guy is trying to swell up your eye or cause some blood to get in there to affect your vision, you’ve got to push through that. That was the tone that we were speaking of, not that actual moment with Tom.
“We did not think that Tom found a way out or was ducking out.”
A no-contest in a title fight is about as definitive of a justification as exists in MMA for an immediate rematch. UFC CEO Dana White was even quick to confirm Saturday night that Aspinall and Gane will rematch as soon as the champion is healthy and cleared to be booked.
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Sonnen, however, isn’t so sure there’s logic to that when a fight ends via illegal maneuvers.
“I don’t know that an immediate rematch is what the appropriate thing is,” Sonnen said. “I get that’s the direction we’re going. … [But] one guy broke the rules. Breaking of those rules cost the match.
“Wouldn’t it be interesting if Tom came out and said, ‘No, I’m not going to rematch him. He’s a cheater. Why would I rematch a guy who already cheated — that violated not one of my eyes, but both? I gave him his chance. He chose to cheat and I’m going to move on.’ If Tom took that stance — which he’s not going to do — I think he’d have a lot of people that support him. For some reason, Ciryl has come out of this thing with his hands clean. He’s the one that did the poking.
“The solution is there,” Sonnen continued. “On weigh-ins, weigh them in right before the competition — [then] nobody’s cutting weight anymore, just like in wrestling. Same thing with the eye poke. If there was some kind of a punishment — but even if we’re looking at this situation, the repercussion is, your night is over with absolutely full pay? You’re guaranteed the exact same big event and title fight in the future, for equal pay — why wouldn’t you poke the guy in the eye?”
Tom Aspinall reacts after being poked in the eyes while fighting Ciryl Gane at UFC 321.
(GIUSEPPE CACACE via Getty Images)
The latest eye-poke debacle, and one of such magnitude, has only added even more fuel to the never-ending debate about UFC’s gloves. Are they the problem? Is it the fighters? A bit of both?
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Most fighters tend to agree that gloves of yesteryear in previous promotions may have better addressed the issues than the gloves UFC has long utilized. That being said, Sonnen also believes that doesn’t mean the UFC’s gloves are the biggest offenders, especially after recent examples in fights with no gloves at all.
“Could a glove be more helpful — yes,” he said. “Is there gloves that would take this out of it where you simply could not poke a guy in the eye? Yes. But the UFC glove doesn’t make it so. Bare-knuckle boxing, by example, had a show over the weekend too, and they had nobody poked in the eye. They had no glove helping them. You had a responsible athlete that closes his damn hand.
“At some point, to blame it on the glove is a little bit weird. … It’s your hand. You know when you’re reaching it towards his face. What are you doing with open fingers and how do you not know where his eye is? I just feel like that punishment is nonexistent. If there’s something where there’s not a punishment, then there’s not an offense. There’s no law or no crime if there’s not a punishment to it. So I think that’s where we need to look to. … The athlete poked a guy with his finger. Not the glove.”
