Tom Aspinall is back in the gym, but his path to the octagon remains blurred by a severe eye injury that he feared had left him blind. The UFC heavyweight champ recently shared footage of himself working out at the gym, and the caption included “back to work” and “coming for it all.” If things go well, the 32-year-old could be looking at a comeback fight in the second quarter of 2026. But since the clip, the Brit has shared an update on his injury.

“It’s getting better. Getting better,” Aspinall told Grace Neutral. “Finally, yeah, I mean it’s [taken] quite a while, but I’ve had a few eye surgeries now. So I’m starting to train again a little bit now, which is good. I’ve only recently had surgery. So it’s only like four weeks ago. But my vision’s a lot better than it was before we had the surgery.” 

Tom Aspinall has been on the sidelines since October last year, when he suffered a double eye poke during his UFC 321 title fight against Ciryl Gane. As he was unable to continue, the referee declared the bout a no-contest. Since then, Aspinall has made no secret of the severity of his injury, having undergone surgery twice. But when asked how bad exactly his vision was after the incident, ‘The Honey Badger’ explained the scary details. 

“So for the first day, I couldn’t see anything,” he added during the interview. “I thought I was blind. I’d literally thought I was blinded. It was awful. And then it just started to come back slowly. And then I got stuck with like a black spot on my eye, where it was just black in my vision. But that’s what the last surgery was for, to try and sort that. So that’s going less and less every day now, which is great.”

Although he is not getting back in the cage yet, he has signed a commercial, advisory, and talent management contract with Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Talent Agency. In the meantime, though, former light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira has moved to the heavyweight division. And he is scheduled to face Ciryl Gane at the White House card on June 14 for the interim heavyweight title.

This could mean that the winner of the fight may earn a shot at facing Tom Aspinall upon his return to the cage. However, memories of Aspinall’s first bout still linger, with some expressing frustration over the way that fight was stopped.

Joe Rogan brands the Tom Aspinall vs. Ciryl Gane stoppage a ‘crime’

Notably, when the fight started last year, Ciryl Gane was leading the fight and had even managed to make Aspinall bleed. There’s no doubt the French heavyweight was winning. Reflecting on this, as Joe Rogan often does, the color commentator didn’t hold back his thoughts about the stoppage.

“It is a crime in the sport that the fight with Aspinall got stopped the way it did,” Rogan said on his podcast. “It’s a crime, because that fight was playing out in a very interesting direction, because Aspinall was having a really hard time touching that guy. He was getting busted up. He was getting touched up a lot. Ciryl’s jab is legit.”

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Rogan was particularly interested in how the fight would develop beyond the opening round, given Aspinall’s limited experience in later rounds. 

“This was the first time that he was ever in front of a guy who was agile and quick and very technical.”

And Rogan isn’t the only one to feel that way. Fans also aren’t happy about how the fight ended, so much so that despite suffering an injury, Tom Aspinall was mocked and accused of faking the injury. 

That being said, Tom Aspinall has a lot to prove once he finally makes his comeback. But whether that will be against Ciryl Gane or Alex Pereira is yet to be seen. When do you think Aspinall will fight again?