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Brett Okamoto
Former UFC champion Henry Cejudo has a piece of advice for Tom Aspinall, in the aftermath of Aspinall’s heavyweight title fight resulting in a no-contest last weekend in Abu Dhabi. Don’t read the comments.
Aspinall (15-3) is still recovering from an accidental eye-poke he suffered during the first round of his title fight against Ciryl Gane at UFC 321 on Saturday. The 32-year-old champion was unable to continue after the eye-poke, resulting in the first foul-related no-contest in UFC championship fight history.
Cejudo was involved in a similar situation in February, when he was unable to continue after getting poked in the eye during a main event against Song Yadong in Seattle. Cejudo says he dealt with a lot of negative accusations around his inability to continue. In an interview with ESPN on Tuesday, Cejudo encouraged Aspinall to ignore that kind of noise as he continues to recover.
“Tom is a good guy and if he’s not careful, and if he’s f—ing around with these trolls, he’s in trouble,” Cejudo said. “He might fight emotional. If he goes [into his next fight] antsy, it’s not going to be good for him. And if he loses, then the excuses will come, ‘it was the crowd.’ No, bro. Learn from those who have come before you. Forget them. Forget each and every one of them.”
Cejudo, 38, said that approach even applies to UFC CEO Dana White, who appeared to suggest he thought Cejudo and Aspinall probably could have continued in both occasions. Cejudo said he allowed White’s comments to affect him when it happened, but has since accepted that it comes with White’s role as promoter.
“He’s going to have a very particular lens through which he’s seeing this,” Cejudo said. “My eye wasn’t getting better and I kept seeing things Dana said about me, I was f—ing fuming. I was raging. I was like, ‘hold on, dude.’ So, I ended up sending him a message, like, ‘hey, man, what the f—?’
“But I’m over it. I get Dana, man. I respect my boss on top of all of that, so if I was to give Tom Aspinall some advice, don’t take it personal. Don’t take it personal, because it’s happened to everyone.”
Cejudo said his eye is still compromised in some ways due to the poke. He is scheduled to make his first appearance since the incident with Yadong when he fights Payton Talbott on December 6 at UFC 323 in Las Vegas. Cejudo has said it will be the final fight of his career. Aspinall, meanwhile, is expected to be rebooked against Gane at a later date, pending his recovery.
When it comes to returning to competition following an eye-poke, Cejudo said his approach is to truly make peace with it — even to the point of fighting through it, if it were to ever happen again.
“If it happens again, you just got to close the eye and say, ‘f— it,'” Cejudo said. “Honestly, that’s the advice I would give myself and Tom. It is what it is. It’s the fight game and accidents do happen. Now you know a little bit what happens, and you can fight with one eye. You know what I’m saying? You guys go in there and be a soldier.”