Michael Bisping believes that Tom Aspinall’s lack of time inside the Octagon may have played a role in the UFC 321 main event being stopped.
Saturday’s heavyweight title fight at Abu Dhabi’s Etihad Arena was ruled a “no contest” after Aspinall was deemed unfit to continue following an eye poke from Ciryl Gane late in the opening round.
Prior to Saturday’s fight, Aspinall’s average fight time inside the Octagon was 2:02, largely due to his tendency to score quick knockout finishes in his first eight UFC appearances. UFC color commentator Bisping, who fought the final stretch of his career with severely impaired vision, believes Aspinall’s relative lack of cage time left him ill-equipped to handle such a high-pressure situation.
“We don't know, right? The only person that knows is Tom, right?” Bisping told his co-host Paul Felder on their Believe You Me podcast. “And the only, I think, where people are starting to criticize and have a certain opinion is because he said, 'I can't see' multiple times to the doctor. Now maybe it's because it's his first situation like that, but we've all been around the sport long enough to know that that's not what you say to the (doctor) if you want to continue to fight. Unless you can't actually see and you're panicking because you're worried about your vision, because you're like, 'Hold on a minute!’
“Imagine this: You got two working eyes. I can remember what those days were like and then all of a sudden, you can't see and you're freaking out and you panic and you're like ‘hold on a I don't give a shit right now about this fight I care about my vision.’
“So there's two sides to it I can understand why people will come to that conclusion. Aljamain Sterling has been saying it. Obviously, he had the whole situation with Petr Yan. He kind of thinks that Tom was looking for a way out. There's a lot of people online saying there's a lot of people supporting him as well. Listen, the only person that knows is Tom. You got to take it at face value. They're going to run it back.”
