Tom Aspinall is back. He’s not in conversation for a comeback fight quite yet, but he’s getting there slowly. ‘The Honey Badger’ 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 for the UFC heavyweight champion, 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 about 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 gone under the knife 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’
“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.
Rogan was particularly interested in how the fight would develop beyond the opening round, given Aspinall’s limited experience in deeper waters.
“This was the first time that he was ever in front of a guy who was agile and quick and very technical,” he said.
And Rogan isn’t the only one to feel that way. Fans aren’t happy about how the fight ended as well, so much so that despite suffering an injury, Tom Aspinall was accused, mocked, and slandered for faking his 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?
