Joe Rogan continues to stand firmly behind UFC heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall, criticizing fans who questioned the Brit’s decision to stop fighting after suffering a serious eye injury against Ciryl Gane.
Aspinall’s first defense of the undisputed heavyweight title at UFC 321 ended in frustration when his fight with Gane was ruled a no-contest late in the opening round. Multiple eye pokes left Aspinall unable to continue, forcing the bout to be stopped. Since then, the heavyweight champion has undergone multiple surgeries and continues to recover from the damage sustained during the fight.
Despite the severity of the injury, some fans accused Aspinall of exaggerating the situation or looking for a way out after a difficult start to the contest. Joe Rogan, however, believes that criticism is completely unfair.
“He got a bad deal,” Rogan said. “He got really fcked 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 fcking see and he’s had two eye surgeries since then.”
Rogan made the comments during a recent episode of his podcast while speaking with kickboxing superstar Rico Verhoeven, who is also a friend and training partner of Aspinall.
Verhoeven echoed Rogan’s sentiments and dismissed suggestions that Aspinall intentionally stopped the fight because he was struggling early against Gane.
“He’s the nicest guy and he works incredibly hard,” Verhoeven said. “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.”
Rogan then pointed to the severity of the foul as further evidence that Aspinall had no choice but to stop fighting.
“If you looked at the eye poke, he was knuckle-deep in his eye hole,” Rogan added.
Since the incident, Aspinall has regularly updated fans on his recovery process, including details about the surgeries he has undergone and the challenges he has faced while working toward a return to competition. However, questions surrounding his absence continue to surface across the MMA community.
The heavyweight champion has also found himself caught in the middle of broader UFC storylines, including ongoing discussions surrounding a potential fight with Jon Jones that never materialized and UFC CEO Dana White’s public feud with boxing promoter Eddie Hearn, who recently signed Aspinall to a management deal.
While some critics remain skeptical about Aspinall’s extended layoff, Rogan believes the backlash says more about certain fans than it does about the champion himself.
“I just hate that fans reacted the way they reacted – and it’s the casual ones, it’s the shitheads,” Rogan said. “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.”
