Tom Aspinall has shared behind-the-scenes footage from the fallout of his UFC 321 fight, where he was poked in both eyes by Ciryl Gane – leading to a No Contest.

Britain’s Aspinall was defending the undisputed heavyweight title for the first time on Saturday, in a main event in Abu Dhabi, when Gane committed an accidental foul in the very first round. Two of his fingers went into Aspinall’s eyes, with one going knuckle-deep into the left eye, though the right seemed to bother the Briton more.

Aspinall, 32, was given the customary five minutes maximum to recover, but he was deemed unable to keep fighting. At the post-fight press conference, UFC president Dana White said Aspinall had been taken to hospital and that a rematch would be booked as soon as possible.

The Independent was told Aspinall sustained no bone damage but was struggling to see out of both eyes on Sunday, and that he is due for more tests upon arriving back in the UK.

In a video on the Wigan fighter’s YouTube channel, he can be heard speaking backstage after the bout, saying, “I can’t even open my eye,” and stressing that Gane was warned by referee Jason Herzog for an eye poke earlier in the round.

“I was like, ‘I can’t see,’ but I thought it was gonna get better,” Aspinall continued. “I would dab it [the eye, with a wet towel], take it off, and it would just be worse.

“I’d go again, a few more seconds, take it off, I could see less and less. It was getting f******g worse.”

Aspinall was then taken to hospital, where his father and head coach Andy said: “[Former UFC champion] Mike Bisping lost an eye. It’s just a horrendous thing to think as a parent really.

“I know what it’s like these days, with people saying what they want, but if it’s your son and they could lose an eye and their health – and they’ve got children to look after… Something needs doing about [eye pokes].”

Tom then showed Andy a slow-motion video of the eye poke, with his father turning away and saying: “It’s horrendous for me to look at.”

“It feels like the back of my eyeball is hurting,” Tom said shortly thereafter. “It’s not even stinging, it’s just painful; it feels like someone’s touched the back of my eyeball.

“It felt like his finger hit the back of the eye socket when he pushed it in. I really respect what Bisping’s done. He’s done more than I would. I wouldn’t carry on fighting with one eye, no chance.”

While being initially inspected by a doctor, Aspinall was seen wincing upon touches to his right eye and a light being shone in it. “It just burns, with the light,” he said.

“There are no external features of trauma,” the doctor said, though another added: “Of course you should stop the fight.”

Aspinall said: “My other eye, my ‘good eye’, is now getting really blurry as well, so I can hardly see.

“It’s way scarier that than what I did to my knee,” Aspinall added, referencing an injury in 2022 that sidelined him for 12 months. “You know that your knee is gonna be alright, whereas your eye… I still don’t know how it’s gonna be.”

Aspinall had last fought in July 2024, stopping Curtis Blaydes in 60 seconds to retain the interim heavyweight belt, after making the rare decision to defend it. He was then out of the cage for 15 months while waiting to see what Jon Jones would do with the regular title, before the American retired this summer and Aspinall was elevated to official champion.

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