Ahead of his return to the Octagon, UFC heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall described the painful eye surgeries that he had.
Aspinall suffered a serious eye injury following his fight against Ciryl Gane at UFC 321 in October 2025, when he fought to a No Contest after being poked in the eye several times during the bout.
The UFC heavyweight champ has not fought since then due to his eye injury. Still, now, after nearly a year away from the sidelines and having gone through multiple eye surgeries, he is finally back to training full time and is set to return to the Octagon sometime this fall against Gane in a rematch.
Tom Aspinall Describes Painful Eye Surgeries
Speaking to “Great Company with Jamie Laing,” Aspinall described the three painful surgeries that he went through following the fight with Gane, suggesting they were the worst surgeries he has ever gone through in his life.
“I’ve had three (eye) surgeries. I had one on the left and two on the right. By the way, I’ve had the snip, right? I’ve had a vasectomy, and I was thinking that has got to be the worst surgery ever. Mate, compared to eye surgery, it is nothing. Honestly. “It’s (expletive) horrendous. So they kept me awake. I lay awake, they put something on to keep your eyeball open… and obviously, they numb it and stuff. They numb your eye. They did drops and then an injection on the side. Mate, they’re coming at you with like a scalpel or knife, or whatever it’s called and you’re just watching them slice your eyeball open. It was horrendous,” Aspinall said (via MMAFighting.com).
While these eye surgeries were painful for Aspinall to endure, he needed to have them so he could get back into the Octagon and compete again against heavyweight contenders.
Tom Aspinall Responds to Critics
After not fighting for nearly a year, Aspinall has been heavily criticized by MMA fans, some of whom have said he has been ducking the rest of the UFC heavyweight division by spending so much time on the sidelines.
For Aspinall, while these comments from fans have been frustrating to hear, he knows that he has not been ducking anyone and that he just suffered serious eye injuries that necessitated surgery and that’s why he spent so much time away from the Octagon.
“I still get comments like, ‘Oh he (expletive) ducked out of the fight, he didn’t want to be there’ and stuff like that, but a lot of MMA fans have also never had a fight in their life, and I don’t expect them to understand what it takes to get to where I’ve got to. It’s just as simple as that, and you don’t see many fighters coming out and saying it. It’s always people who have never had a fight. If you’re going to sit behind your phone and comment on the toughness of a professional MMA fighter, then you don’t really know what you’re talking about,” Aspinall said.
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