The UFC heavyweight division is in absolute dispair. Jon Jones retired and vacated the title. Then, interim champ Tom Aspinall was promoted to undisputed champion but in his first defense against Ciryl Gane, a gruesome eyepoke ended the bout and the British fighter hasn’t been able to fight ever since that night on October 25th, 2025.
Aspinall recently had eye surgery, but the updates after it are not as positive as the UFC might have hoped. According to Petesy Carroll of Yahoo Sports, Aspinall is still unable to track moving targets, he gets vertigo if he changes directions suddenly, and if he is too much on his phone, his eyes will start to hurt badly.
Not only that, he misses people’s hands when he tries to shake them. Aspinall is also reported having difficulties playing with his kids and to this point he still can’t drive. Per Dr. Rehman, who performed the surgery, “Tom’s had quite a serious injury. It was a significant eye poke that led to a few different issues.” One of those issues is vision change. Meaning, Aspinall has double vision on one side that is so bad that he feels sick when he attempts to do footwork drills.
This is not Aspinall’s first serious injury
In 2022, Aspinall tore his ACL during a fight against Curtis Blaydes. Comparing both injuries, Aspinall said, “The knee is annoying when you’re trying to move, but when you sit down it’s completely fine. With the eye, as long as I’m awake it’s constantly there, reminding you of the situation you’re in.“
The last time he came back from injury, Aspinall looked better than ever. Following his ACL tear, he came back to knock Marcin Tybura, then won the interim belt by knocking out Sergei Pavlovich, and then knock out Curtis Blaydes, before the ill-fated fight with Gane where the eyepoke took place.
What’s going on with the UFC heavyweight division?
The number one contender is still Gane, who hasn’t fought since the Aspinall bout either. He is followed by Volkov, who lost to Gane in a very controversial decision but then won against Jailton Almeida. Sergei Pavlovich is ranked third while Curtis Blaydes is fourth, both who have been knocked out dominantly by Aspinall.
There are some prospects lurking in like Waldo Cortes-Acosta, who is ranked fifth and riding a three-knockout-fight win streak. Then sixth-ranked Rizvan Kuniev is getting some weight on his name. Also, non-ranked Josh Hokit is getting huge buzz. Still, until Aspinall’s situation isn’t resolved, the division is stalled. Given the fact that the UFC is already in the deal with Paramount, the organization must solve this as soon as possible.