UFC champ Tom Aspinall confirms multiple eye surgeries set after Ciryl Gane eye-poke debacle

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Tom Aspinall will indeed be going under the knife as a result of the damage sustained in his controversial UFC 321 no-contest against Ciryl Gane. The UFC heavyweight champion announced the news Monday on his YouTube channel, revealing that multiple eye surgeries are planned for the next few weeks following the grisly double eye-poke he suffered late in the first round of his October title defense against Gane.

Said Aspinall:

"By the time this [video] is going out I'll probably have had surgery on one side already. Next surgery is coming mid-January. So we're working toward getting back and that's the plan."

Aspinall's latest update comes more than two month after his UFC 321 bout ended in unceremonious fashion and ignited a firestorm of debate within the combat world about Gane's actions and Aspinall's inability to continue in their bout. Aspinall unveiled doctor's notes in November diagnosing him with "significant bilateral ocular trauma requiring ongoing consultant-led management" and suggesting that Aspinall's symptoms were "consistent with significant traumatic bilateral Brown's syndrome, associated with ongoing diplopia, restricted ocular motility, reduced visual function and substantial field loss." 

Per the Cleveland Clinic:

Brown syndrome is an issue with the muscle or tendon that controls your eyes’ movements (your superior oblique muscle and tendon). ... It makes it hard or impossible to move your eye freely in all directions. It’s usually hard for people with Brown syndrome to look in and up at the same time. Brown syndrome can also affect how far up your eye can move.

If you have Brown syndrome in one of your eyes, you’ll still be able to see out of it, but it won’t move freely as you look in other directions. It might feel like your eye is “stuck” or can’t quite move all the ways it usually can.

Aspinall has repeatedly blasted Gane as a "big cheater" in the months since the bout, accusing the French heavyweight of purposefully targeting his eyes throughout their one-round bout.

In his first interview following the incident, Aspinall told Uncrowned he was also disappointed in UFC CEO Dana White, who rather than coming to Aspinall's defense in the immediate post-fight aftermath, instead proclaimed at UFC 321's post-fight press conference that Aspinall chose not to continue.

"Slightly disappointing, because he hadn't spoke to me," Aspinall told Uncrowned's "The Ariel Helwani Show" in December. "He was already giving updates on my health, and he had no idea what was going on. Disappointing, mate. Disappointing.

"It definitely didn't help the cause [in regards to post-fight community backlash]."

Aspinall was deemed unable to continue by a cageside physician following Gane's double eye-poke and was sent to the hospital in the hours after UFC 321. The bout was Aspinall's first since July 2024, and first as an undisputed champion despite holding an interim UFC heavyweight title since late 2023.

White has since confirmed a championship rematch with Gane is likely next, though a timeline for that rematch is obviously dependent on Aspinall's health.