UFC heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall has spoken out about his disappointment with UFC president Dana White’s comments regarding his eye injury.
Aspinall’s UFC 321 heavyweight title defense against Ciryl Gane in October ended in a no-contest after the Frenchman accidentally poked the champion in both eyes.
The Brit also revealed he’s been diagnosed with bilateral traumatic Brown’s syndrome, contradicting White’s claims of “no damage to the eye.”
“I was very disappointed, yeah. Very disappointed … It didn’t help the cause,” Aspinall said to “The Ariel Helwani Show” on Tuesday regarding White’s post-UFC 321 comments, stating “Tom didn’t want to continue in the fight.”
“Me and Dana don’t really speak like that anyway, ever,” he continued.
“I’ve said hello here and there, but I don’t really have a relationship with Dana. I speak to Hunter [Campbell]. I don’t know what to say, that’s the way it is …
“[White] started giving updates that there was nothing wrong with my eye, when that isn’t the case … I’ve done a lot for the UFC, so, yeah, disappointing.”
Aspinall (15-3) released an update on social media Sunday in which he revealed he might require surgery to address lingering symptoms from the eye poke. He went into further detail Tuesday regarding his status.
“The eyes are not back to full health yet, so we’re still waiting,” he said.
“We put the doctors’ reports out recently. The left eye looked worse, but the right eye was the one that had the most damage. I was like a human bowling ball.
“The one that looked deeper actually did the least damage.
“They don’t really know when I’m going to be back at the moment. I’m still not even cleared to train or do anything. They’re talking about doing surgery on both eyes, they’re talking about injections — I have to get an injection in the eyeball soon.
“So I’m not looking forward to that. I don’t really know [when I’ll be back] at this point.”