Tom Aspinall was told he should have fought with one eye at UFC321 after hismain event clash against Ciryl Gane ended after being eye poked. Saturday's event in Abu Dhabi was Aspinall's return to the octagon in 15 months, where helast knocked out Curtis Blaydes to defend his interim heavyweight title.

The Manchester-born fighter, 32, entered the fight as the favourite but was left bloodied by the Frenchman in the opening minutes of the first round. Gane, 35, was competing in his third and potentially last UFC title fight and certainly looked the part before the clash came to an abrupt end.

It was in the opening round when 'Bon Gamin' landed a gruesome double eye poke on Aspinall, leaving the champion in pain. He was allowed five minutes to recover but with time ticking, Aspinall informed the doctor and referee, Jason Herzog, that he was unable to see out of one of his eyes.

His admission resulted in the fight being ruled a no contest, the first of Aspinall and Gane's professional careers. The no contest ruling also meant Aspinall retained his belt, albeit, in unfortunate circumstances.

He was immediately transported to hospitalwhere he was told by doctors that despite not suffering long-term damage to his eyes, stopping the fight was the correct decision.

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Frustration was rife among the MMA community given the excitement of the two fighters finally battling. The controversial end of the fight was discussed on the ESPN post-fight show, with former UFC stars Anthony Smith and Chael Sonnen giving their takes on the situation.

It was Sonnen who claimed that Aspinall should have fought through the pain, even if it meant only being able to see out of one eye. The American insisted: "In all fairness, if you’re the heavyweight champion of the world, you’ve got to fight with one eye at times.

"If you get poked in the eye and you’re injured, we have a totally different conversation, but if you get poked in the eye and you can’t see, generally in our sport that’s just something you’ve got to push through," he added.

UFC chief Dana White was as deflated as anybody at the Etihad Arena as he said in his post-fight press conference: "I feel the way everybody feels, Great showing, s—-y ending, you know?

"I think that after the Jones fight, a lot of people wrote Ciryl Gane off, he looked damn good tonight… It was good, it looked like we were in for a few rounds and it was going to be a good fight."

After being asked whether a rematch between the pair would be the right move in the heavyweight decision, despite Alexander Volkov's victory over Jailton Almeida earlier on in the night, White replied: "Total pain in the a– but yeah.

"It’s unfortunate it ended the way that it did and yes, I think that there probably will be a lot more interest in the rematch after they say, you know, [Gane] had Tom bloodied up and Tom didn’t want to continue in the fight.

"So the rematch is very interesting… Right here, right now, being honest – I never do this when it comes to talking about what next fight is going to happen – the rematch is what makes sense."