Gane labels Aspinall 'mentally fragile' as UFC heavyweight feud spills into public war of words

Ciryl Gane has launched a sharp verbal attack on Tom Aspinall, branding the former UFC interim heavyweight champion ‘mentally fragile’ and questioning his conduct in the weeks following their disputed no-contest last October.

The bout ended without a result after a double eye poke from Gane left Aspinall unable to continue. Aspinall has remained sidelined with eye-related complications since, but Gane — now the undisputed heavyweight champion — says the Englishman’s public response to the incident went too far.

“Tom Aspinall was seen as a monster really, like a freak of nature, but when you look at the numbers, it’s a different story,” Gane said on the Zack En Roue Libre podcast. “There are a lot of things like that where, even mentally, we knew he was a little mentally fragile; we’d picked up on it with him. The way he celebrated after fights, his body language, etc. How he communicated and so on; we suspected he was a little fragile. And in the end, sure enough, everything that happened after our fight confirms that the guy complains quite a bit.”

Gane was careful to acknowledge that Aspinall was within his rights to stop fighting after the eye poke, but argued the sustained public commentary worked against him. “Brother, you got poked in the eye; you have the right to stop. That’s your right. Nobody knows how you experience that pain. But you don’t need to do everything you did in terms of public statements because it worked against him in the end.”

The Frenchman also pointed to his own experience as a counterpoint, referencing a 2021 eye poke he suffered during his stoppage win over Derrick Lewis — a fight in which he claimed the belt. “He poked me in the eye and my vision hadn’t recovered, but I kept fighting. I didn’t complain about it.”

The rivalry has since taken a significant turn. Gane captured the interim heavyweight title by knocking out Alex Pereira at UFC Freedom 250 in June, setting up what was expected to be a title unification rematch. However, Aspinall subsequently vacated the belt, elevating Gane to undisputed champion without a second fight taking place.

Gane is now scheduled to make the first defence of his undisputed title against undefeated contender Josh Hokit at UFC 334 on 14 November at Madison Square Garden in New York City.