Eye-poke drama: Ciryl Gane insists he was pushing Tom Aspinall to hear his wild explanation

Photo by Edward Berthelot/Getty Images

Ciryl Gane isn’t planning on changing anything about how he fights, even after his last bout ended with eye pokes.

Gane says Tom Aspinall made more of the injuries than there really were during their heavyweight title clash in Abu Dhabi last October.

Even though Gane’s got another big one lined up against Alex Pereira at the White House, people are still bringing up that fight. It’s not the first time someone’s thrown shade his way either.

Aspinall’s not the only one who has labelled Gane a dirty fighter after sharing the cage with him, but that hasn’t changed how he approaches his game.

Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC

Ciryl Gane explains why he won’t change his approach following eye poke controversy

Tom Aspinall is looking for a chance to get one back against Ciryl Gane, after claiming the eye pokes in their last fight were no accident.

Although figures like Daniel Cormier have pushed back on those accusations, it took a while before Gane himself addressed the situation publicly.

Recently, he broke his silence and gave his perspective on how the eye pokes happened. He also made it clear that he doesn’t feel the need to change anything about how he fights going forward.

“No, unfortunately this happens at like every event,” Gane told New York Post Sports. “This is not something special. So, unfortunately, I landed my middle kick and when you land your middle kick, you land also the hands and he came in front of me and the first thing coming to me was his face. So I tried to push his face, my fingers just swiped down his eye. This is MMA.”

Gane has taken issue with some of Aspinall’s comments after their bout but stopped short of criticising him directly.