Sean O’Malley has Tom Aspinall’s back after UFC 321.
Following Saturday’s main event debacle, which saw heavyweight champion Aspinall unable to continue after suffering an eye poke at the hands of Ciryl Gane, fighters and fans were quick to weigh in on the disappointing conclusion of the title bout. Pundits Chael Sonnen and Anthony Smith harshly criticized Aspinall for not fighting through the foul, while veteran Jim Miller believes the larger share of the criticism should be put on the offending fighter.
On his YouTube channel, O’Malley expressed full support for Aspinall, and thinks it’s absurd his credibility is being attacked.
“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.’
“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 UFC 321 main event was stopped with less than 30 seconds remaining in the opening round, leaving plenty of questions as to whether Gane would have gone on to win the fight after seemingly taking the first round (as it was not completed, it was not officially scored) or if Aspinall would have turned the action around with 20 minutes left in the fight.
O’Malley is convinced that were it not for the illegal move, Aspinall would have continued fighting.
“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.
“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.”
After the fight, UFC CEO Dana White expressed interest in re-booking the fight, though nothing has been set in stone. A timetable for Aspinall’s return to action is also unclear.
Multiple replays showed Gane’s fingers making firm contact with both of Aspinall’s eyes, which is one reason O’Malley is taking Aspinall’s word for it as far as the severity of the foul. From what O’Malley saw, though, it’s worth booking the rematch as soon as possible.
“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.”
“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.”
