Aspinall's freak eye injury exposes UFC's new reality

If you needed evidence of the eerie uncanny of the MMA world, UFC 321’s main event provided that proof. Some fans are questioning a fighter - who was poked in both eyes simultaneously - for wincing more out of his right eye than his left, even though it was the left that had a finger plunged knuckle-deep inside it.

- ALEX PATTLE

“What does this say?” they suggest with their tweets, punctuating their suspicion with ponderous emojis, whose yellow cartoon hands are raised against yellow cartoon chins. Perhaps a better question is “what does this say” about these fans?

In a 10-minute spell on Saturday night in Abu Dhabi, palpable tension morphed into simmering concern and then an ultimate, galling deflation, as Ciryl Gane’s double eye poke on Tom Aspinall left the Briton unable to continue fighting in the main event of UFC 321. The British champion, the hulking hope of heavyweight MMA, could not continue his first defence of the undisputed heavyweight title.

With that, he was unable to end a 23-month saga that saw him win the interim belt, defend it in a rare and successful move, and get strung along by an evasive (and eventually retiring) Jon Jones. Nor was he unable to end a 15-month absence from the cage successfully. In the end, there was no closure to that torturous saga; it simply entered a new phase.

With barely 30 seconds left in the first round of a tense, competitive bout - in which Gane admittedly looked a half-step ahead of the Wigan fighter - Aspinall was subjected to an accidental foul that caused a No Contest. The fight was thrown out, and the MMA world was consumed by burning questions and, in many cases, sheer stupidity.