UFC commentator Joe Rogan came to the defense of UFC heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall following his No Contest at UFC 321 last fall.
In the main event of UFC 321, Aspinall suffered an eye injury following an accidental eye poke from title challenger Ciryl Gane that left him unable to see, causing a premature stop to the fight due to a No Contest late in the first round.
Aspinall has yet to step back into the Octagon since then, and given that the fight was last October, fans have been incredibly frustrated seeing the UFC heavyweight champion not compete in nearly a year.
But Rogan came to Aspinall’s defense, suggesting that the heavyweight champ has been given a raw deal.
Joe Rogan Defends Tom Aspinall
Speaking on “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast, Rogan defended Aspinall, suggesting that he got a bad deal from the fans in the aftermath of it.
“He got a bad deal. He got really (expletive) over for that fight. The way people got upset at him for stopping the fight with those eye pokes, to me that drove me crazy. What do you expect the guy to do? He’s defending the heavyweight title. He’s defending the heavyweight title. He gets poked in the eyes and he can’t (expletive) see and he’s had two eye surgeries since then,” Rogan said (via MMAFighting.com).
“If you looked at the eye poke, he was knuckle-deep in his eye hole.
“I just hate that fans reacted the way they reacted – and it’s the casual ones, it’s the (expletive). For me, I was like, ‘God, you’ve got give the guy some grace. He got his eye poked out.’ He literally was knuckle-deep in his eyes. “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.”
Rico Verhoeven Also Defends Tom Aspinall
In addition to Rogan defending the UFC heavyweight champion, so did his teammate, kickboxing (and boxing) star Rico Verhoeven, who was a guest of Rogan’s on the podcast.
“He’s the nicest guy and he works incredibly hard. He would never, never even though—Because I understand where it comes from from the people to a certain extent because they feel like, ‘Hey, Gane was doing so good in the beginning of the fight.’ But it was just the beginning of the fight. It was just the first round or whatever, so it’s possible because of some ring rust he had to get into it, and the fight ain’t over until it’s over. You can have an opinion about the first round, he gets an eye poke, now he’s going to stop because he knew he was behind or whatever. He would never, never in whatever world do that,” Verhoeven said.
Now that Aspinall’s eye has healed up, he is expected to rematch Gane this fall or winter in a UFC heavyweight title unification bout after Gane beat Alex Pereira at UFC Freedom 250 to capture the interim title.
This time, let’s hope the rematch doesn’t end with any sort of controversy.
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