Ciryl Gane says pushing Tom Aspinall's face away led to eye pokes

Ciryl Gane was in defensive mode when he accidentally poked Tom Aspinall in the eyes at UFC 321.

Gane's fight against UFC heavyweight champion Aspinall (15-3 MMA, 8-1 UFC) this past October was ruled a no contest after an eye poke rendered the Brit unable to continue. Aspinall required double eye surgery, and hasn't been able to resume to sparring just yet.

Gane (13-2 MMA, 10-2 UFC) was asked if he worked on keeping his fingers closed during training.

"No, unfortunately, this has happened in every event," Gane told New York Post Sports. "This is not something special. Unfortunately, I landed my middle kick. When you land the middle kick, you land also the hands. He came in front of me, and the first thing coming toward me was his face. So I tried to push his face, and my fingers just swiped him in his eyes. This is MMA."

Gane, who takes on Alex Pereira for the interim heavyweight title in the UFC Freedom 250 co-main event on June 14 from the White House in Washington D.C., initially put Aspinall on blast for exaggerating the eye pokes. However, he appears to have walked back some of those comments.

"At the moment, I was a little bit frustrated because I thought it was possible to continue the fight," Gane said. "Also, I was thinking about all the sacrifices I did before for this fight. But this is the sport. It's OK. I said just after the fight, we're not in the eyes of Tom Aspinall, so we can't judge. Maybe he can't see like he said. So no, I'm not judging."

This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Ciryl Gane addresses eye pokes that ended UFC 321 Tom Aspinall fight