UFC heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall broke his silence on Sunday, five weeks after he was forced to retire from his fight against Ciryl Gane in October after an illegal eye poke.
Aspinall (15-3) said he was poked in the eye twice by Gane. He continued after the first incident, which the Frenchman was warned for, but Aspinall could not continue after second with referee Jason Herzog stopping the contest.
On Sunday, the Brit took to Instagram and released a video on his YouTube channel breaking down what happened and revealed he has been diagnosed with "bilateral traumatic Brown's syndrome."
Aspinall said he has not been medically cleared, has not trained since the fight and does not know when he will be able to return, saying he may also require surgery on his eyes.
So what have Aspinall's doctors said? And what exactly is Brown's syndrome?
ESPN breaks down what the heavyweight champion revealed on Sunday.
What did Aspinall say?
Aspinall spoke for the first time since the Oct. 25 bout with Gane in a video released to his official YouTube channel and posted medical updates on his Instagram. The UFC star said he has spent the last five weeks in-and-out of hospital seeing eye specialists and receiving treatment.
"Ciryl Gane tried to make my head a bowling ball with the double eye poke knuckle deep in both," he said in the YouTube clip. "So, yeah, wouldn't recommend it at all."
Aspinall shared a medical letter which outlined his diagnosis on Instagram.
"Mr. Aspinall sustained a bilateral ocular trauma during a professional sporting event in late October 2025," it read. "... Orthopedic evaluations demonstrated impaired binocular coordination and restricted ocular mobility."
What is Brown's Syndrome?
The NHS [UK National Health Service] outlines Brown's Syndrome as "an eye movement abnormality that can occur in either one or both eyes. It can make looking upwards and inwards difficult and can give the appearance of a squint when looking in certain directions."
In short, the condition effects the muscle that controls eye movement. The NHS say the condition can result in patients having double vision.
"The eye, well both eyes, but especially the right eye, still ongoing," Aspinall said on YouTube. "There's talk of surgery in the eyes. We've got to see how it goes over the next few weeks. That's down to the specialist."
Aspinall's medical letter said: "Depending on clinical progression, targeted periocular [the area around the eye] steroid injections or surgical intervention to address persistent motility impairment may be required if symptoms fail to resolve."
When will Aspinall return?
Aspinall said he hasn't trained or been in the gym since the fight, and has not been medically cleared to return.
The fighter's medical letter stated: "Mr. Aspinall must abstain from sparring, fighting or participating in any combat-related activity until full resolution of eye movement impairment and diplopia."
On what will happen next and when he can return to training, Aspinall said: "I think right now, we've just got to get everything back to normal, follow the doctor's orders. That's all I can control right now, we'll cross that bridge when I'm feeling better."
"I'm doing alright, as good as I can be," he continued. "A lot of haters out there that think they're eye doctors. Listen ... I'll double eye poke you full blast in the eyes and see if you can still write some grim comment on Instagram or YouTube. You let me know, you tough guys out there who think you'll be able to carry on with one of the best strikers in the world when you can't see a thing. But there's been a lot of positivity out there, a lot of fighters backing me up.
What did Aspinall say about Gane?
Aspinall didn't mince his words in his video when talking about Gane, who he said has not reached out to him since the fight.
"My thoughts on him? I think he's a big cheater," Aspinall said. "Look at all his fights. Even Jon Jones himself said before he fought him that Ciryl Gane's a cheater and uses dirty tactics."
Aspinall highlighted clips from various Gane fights as evidence that Gane hits opponents in the back of the head, a stated foul in the Unified Rules of Mixed Martial Arts.
"When [the eye poke] happened initially, I didn't really think much of it," Aspinall said. "I thought it was an accidental eye poke, whatever. When I watch the fight back, that's when I really got the gist of what's going on. The guy was trying to f---ing poke my eyes out all the way through that round.
"Multiple exchanges -- nearly every exchange I could have put him in danger -- he had his fingers out, pointing towards my eyes. The guy was cheating from the first second. The way that he wanted to win that fight was to have me compromised by cheating."