The undisputed heavwyeight champion has remained largely quiet online since suffering a brutal poke in both eyes against Ciryl Gane back in October
Tom Aspinall has revealed he has been diagnosed with a rare eye condition after being poked in the eye by Ciryl Gane.
The UFC star returned to the cage back in October for the first time in over a year, taking on Gane at UFC 321 in Abu Dhabi. However, the first defence of his gold strap could not have gone any worse after the French challenger poked the Wigan warrior in both eyes.
Aspinall was quickly rushed to hospital before being sent home for further tests. In the weeks that have followed, the 32-year-old has largely remained quiet online, but has now provided a major update regarding his health. In a post uploaded to his official Instagram account, Aspinall revealed he has been diagnosed with “significant traumatic bilateral Brown’s syndrome” and is still suffering from “persistent” double vision. Brown’s syndrome is a brutal condition where the eye cannot move upwards, especially when looking inward.
A longer description of his diagnosis reveals: “Following a bilateral eye-poke injury sustained during a UFC fight in October 2025, the patient has been diagnosed with bilateral traumatic Brown’s syndrome, indicating significant disruption to the superior oblique tendon-trochlear complex. Clinically, he presents with: Persistent diplopia in multiple gaze positions, including lateral gaze and upgaze. Blurred vision and photophobia following the trauma. Marked restriction of elevation in adduction in both eyes, confirmed on orthoptic assessment. Reduction in visual acuity bilaterally.
“Severe bilateral visual field depression on Humphrey visual field testing. Imaging and investigations demonstrated: Findings requiring continued monitoring, with no definitive structural explanation identified for the degree of functional deficit. CT imaging initially raised concern for a medial orbital wall abnormality. MRI demonstrated no acute structural abnormality to account for motility impairment or visual symptoms. Intraocular pressures and anterior segment findings did not identify the source of functional limitation.”
Aspinall is not yet cleared to return to the cage and the Brit admits he is just solely prioritising his health as of right now. “We’ve got to see how it goes over the next few weeks. I’m not in the gym training at the moment,” he said in a video posted on his YouTube channel on Sunday. “I’m not doing anything MMA wise at the moment. I’m just following the doctor’s orders right now.” He added: “I’ve got to be 100 per cent right. So whenever the eye’s good to go, that’s when I’ll do it.”
Following the grimacing scenes over in Abu Dhabi, the UFC has faced calls to change the rules regarding eye pokes after Aspinall’s clash with Gane went down as a No Contest. Some within the MMA fraternity even suggest that the promotion should revert to its previous style of gloves.
Last year, Dana White’s organisation brought in newly-designed gloves in an attempt to reduce eye pokes, cuts, and hand injuries, but it was short-lived after it was unpopular with some of the fighters, who complained about the discomfort. It did not take long before the promotion shifted back to its original style.
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Just a few weeks after the heavyweight dust-up, veteran referee Herb Dean revealed there will be stricter punishments when it comes to eye pokes in MMA. Speaking on Michael Bisping’s Believe You Me podcast, Dean: “So far, what we’re talking about is, we’ve made rules.
“So we made a rule it’s a foul to extend the fingers towards the eyes. That’s the rule we’ve already had in place. So that rule has been there, but we haven’t been enforcing it. So we’re going to move forward on that.
“I think people would not have been used to seeing someone get a point taken, because most of the time when we take a point, it’s more of a reactive to the damaging and the unbalancing of the fight that’s been done by a foul, and that’s the only way we can think to balance it. But this right here is a dangerous foul and somebody’s going to keep doing a dangerous action. We should start taking points by them doing that action before it actually happens to hurt somebody.”
He added: “The other thing about MMA is, I mean, we have a one-point sport. The majority of three-round fights, what’s the score? 29-28. So you take one point, you’ve taken a majority of wins and turned it into a draw. But we’re going to have to do something, so that’s one of the things we’ve thought about that we’re going to be doing. That’s something that’s going to happen.”
When is the next UFC fight?
UFC 323 will take place on December 6 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas – headlined by a bantamweight clash between Merab Dvalishvili and Petr Yan. While official times are yet to be confirmed, expect the early prelims to get underway at 11pm UK time (3pm PT / 5pm CT / 6pm ET), with the prelims following at 1am UK time on Sunday (5pm PT / 7pm CT / 8pm ET on Saturday).
The main card will start at around 3am UK time on Sunday (7pm PT / 9pm CT / 10pm ET on Saturday). The main event between Dvalishvili and Yan will likely take place at around 5.30am UK time on Sunday. The fight should not start later than this but could be brought forward if the prelim fights are completed earlier than expected. Fans in the UK will be able to watch all of the action live on TNT Sports.
