TOM ASPINALL has blasted Ciryl Gane for ignoring repeated warnings about outstretched fingers before his horrific double eye poke in their UFC heavyweight title fight.
The Wigan warrior’s first outing as undisputed champion ended in a no-contest last Saturday as he was left unable to see out of his right eye with just seconds of the first round remaining.
And Aspinall, 32, slammed his French foe for not listening to referee Jason Herzog in the Abu Dhabi dust-up before being rushed to the hospital for further medical assessment.
He raged: “All that training for that. What the f*** is he doing? He got warned twice before it. Twice before it he got warned for it and he f***ing did it again.”
Gane, 35, was left devastated by his fight ending foul but insists it wasn’t intentional.
The Parisian puncher said: “I didn’t do it on purpose. I know what it’s like to have an eye poke.
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“Because when I fought Derrick Lewis, I got an eye poke and I was seeing two Derrick Lewises for a full round.
“During a bit of the round and the rest of the round, I saw too Derrick Lewis. So I’m not going to say, ‘Yeah, he’s a liar.”
He added: “I think I did very well. We defended the takedown. I touched him, and we saw some blood on his nose.
“It was a really great first round. That’s why maybe I was a little bit disappointed and a little bit sad about this issue. But this is a sport.”
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UFC supremo Dana White was extremely frustrated by the finish and plans to pit the pair against one another again next year.
He said: “It’s total pain in the ass, but yes [we’ll book the rematch]. They’re both in shape, other than whatever’s wrong with his eye. Both guys are not injured. So as soon as possible.”
White reckons the disappointing climax to the fight will result in more eyeballs on the rematch, adding: “It’s unfortunate that it ended the way that it did.
“I think that there probably will be a lot more interest in the rematch after they saw he had Tom bloodied up.
“Tom didn’t want to continue in the fight. The rematch is very interesting.”
