Joe Rogan believes Tom
Aspinall deserved more sympathy following the controversial
ending to his bout with Ciryl Gane
last year.
Aspinall’s first defense of the
Ultimate Fighting Championship undisputed heavyweight title
ended in a no contest after the British champion suffered a severe
eye poke that left him unable to continue. The conclusion to the
UFC
321 main event sparked debate among fans, with some questioning
the severity of the injury and whether Aspinall could have
continued.
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Joe Rogan defends Tom Aspinall’s UFC 321 no contest with Ciryl
Gane after double eye surgery
Rogan recently pushed back against criticism directed at Aspinall.
Speaking to Rico
Verhoeven on a recent episode of his podcast, the veteran UFC
commentator argued that Aspinall was unfairly maligned despite
dealing with a legitimate injury that eventually required
surgery.
“He [Aspinall] got a bad deal,” Rogan said. “He got really f*cked
over for that fight.”
Rogan took issue with criticism suggesting that Aspinall should
have continued competing despite the eye injury, pointing out that
the British heavyweight was defending his title and was unable to
see properly.
“The way people got upset at him for stopping the fight with those
eye pokes, to me that drove me crazy,” Rogan added. “What do you
expect the guy to do? He’s defending the heavyweight title. He gets
poked in the eyes, and he can’t f*cking see and he’s had two eye
surgeries since then. If you looked at the eye poke, [Gane] was
knuckle-deep in his eye hole.”
Aspinall later underwent double eye surgery to recover from the
injury, further reinforcing Rogan’s belief that the champion’s
inability to continue was justified.
“I just hate that fans reacted the way they reacted — and it’s the
casual ones,” Rogan said. “For me, I was like, ‘God, you’ve got to
give the guy some grace.’ He got his eye poked out. For anyone to
think that he should be fighting with one eye like that — ‚Who
cares — keep fighting‘ — that’s insane. He got fouled. It’s not
because of a punch. It’s not because he got kicked or an elbow —
it’s a foul. So no, the fight should have been stopped the way it
was and everybody should understand that. It’s not his fault. It
was his opponent’s fault.”
Aspinall is expected to run it back with Gane next after the
Frenchman won the interim title at
UFC Freedom 250.