Tom Aspinall has an update for fans on when he’ll return to the UFC octagon … unfortunately, it’s going to take a lot of waiting.
It’s been five months since Ciryl Gane double eye-poked Aspinall, leaving the heavyweight champion badly injured and requiring multiplesurgeries. The British fighter was struggling to regain depth perception and field of vision. There was a moment there where we questioned whether he’d be able to return to competition. We still wonder whether the Aspinall we see in the cage following this will be the same fighter.
In a new video uploaded to his YouTube channel, Aspinall confirmed that positive progress has been made in his recovery, and now the big hold-up isn’t his eyes but the upcoming interim heavyweight title fight going down at UFC White House between Ciryl Gane and Alex Pereira.
“Everyone keeps asking when I’m going to fight,” Aspinall said. “The obvious answer is that the other two guys, Alex and Ciryl, have to fight for the interim title. I’m obviously going to fight the winner. The UFC have told me that I’m going to fight the winner.”
“First and foremost, I have to get my health right, which is on the right track,” he added. “[There is] no specific month. I’m waiting to get clearance, which is going to be coming soon, they just told me.”
That leaves it up to how quickly the UFC can turn around the winner of Pereira vs. Gane, which depends on how brutal of a war the two striking specialist end up in on June 14th.
“Any specific month depends on the UFC,” Aspinall said. “Those other two are going to fight each other. Let them do their thing first, recover from that, and then when everybody’s ready, we’re going to do it.”
Aspinall sure is a patient man. He spent a year recovering from a knee injury. Another year waiting for a Jon Jones fight to materialize. And now it’s almost guaranteed it will be a year since his last fight before he fights the winner of Pereira vs. Gane. Story of this guy’s career at this point.
