The ending of UFC 321 left a bad taste in plenty of people’s mouths.
Tom Aspinall vs. Ciryl Gane was a highly anticipated bout going in, but the abrupt ending due to an eye poke has sour people on the pay-per-view as a whole. Instead of discussing the crowning of a new UFC Strawweight Champion or the incredible bout between Ludovit Klein def. Mateusz Rebecki, all people can talk about is whether the eye poke was an accident or if Aspinall is a coward for not continuing.
Paddy Pimblett is one of the fans who was unhappy with UFC 321 and deems it as one of the worst pay-per-views in the company’s history.
“If this does end like this, this will be one of the worst pay-per-views in UFC’s history,” Pimblett said on his YouTube channel. “One of the biggest disappointments ever when it comes to a card.”
Pimblett then went down the card and he dissected it from beginning to end. Overall, he didn’t think it was too bad, though he labeled one prominent fight as boring.
“The prelims to start it off weren’t bad,” Pimblett said. “The big heavyweight [Valter Walker] getting another heel hook, the Aussie kid [Quillan Salkilld] knocking Nasrat [Haqparast] out. Even the start of the pay-per-view, the first fight, that 15-0 undefeated dude [Azamat Murzakanov] knocked [Aleksandar] Rakic out. Thinking this is shaping up to be a great card and then Almeida just tries to hold Volkov down like it’s a grappling match. Volkov gets the win, that was a boring fight. Then Umar-Bautista had about 20 exciting seconds in 15 minutes, that was another boring fight, Umar wins a decision.
“Co-main event wasn’t too bad, Mackenzie Dern and Jandiroba, but everyone was just looking forward to the main event, Aspinall-Gane. It was shaping up to be a great fight and then 15 seconds left in the round, gets poked in the eye and he can’t see, so I don’t know really what Tom’s meant to do there. If he can’t see, he can’t be fighting, can he?”
Despite the controversy ending at UFC 321, Pimblett does think a rematch should happen. He puts the blame on Gane for the incident as he did rake Tom’s eyes, but he feels that both men are healthy enough to go again.
“‘Anticlimactic as it gets,’ Jon Anik, you are not wrong,” Pimblett said. “I think they’ve got to run it back. You can’t not do that fight again. It was shaping up to be a good fight, the best test Tom’s had so far in the UFC.
“Feel bad for Tom. Feel bad for Ciryl Gane, even though it was his fault, it was unintentional, but still, it’s his fault that the fight’s not f*cking continuing. Need to do something with the gloves so you can’t do that with your fingers.”