ABU DHABI (Reuters) -Tom Aspinall’s first defence of his undisputed UFC heavyweight crown against Ciryl Gane on Saturday ended in a no-contest after an unintentional eye-poke late in the first round by the Frenchman rendered the Englishman unable to continue.
Aspinall was upgraded from interim to undisputed champion in June when previous incumbent Jon Jones retired and, having not fought for more than a year, the 32-year-old Briton was eager to get back in the cage to show what he can do.
Gane, whose previous title fights against Jones and Francis Ngannou ended in defeat, started well, bloodying Aspinall’s nose early as the two traded blows in the centre of the cage, with the Englishman recovering to display his whole arsenal of striking tricks.
The fight came to an abrupt end at the 4:35 mark in the first round as Aspinall dropped his arms to block a kick and the fingers of Gane’s left hand inadvertently gouged into both of his eyes, rendering him unable to see and forcing referee Jason Herzog to call off the fight.
Brazilian-American Mackenzie Dern claimed the vacant women’s strawweight title in the co-main event with a win over Virna Jandiroba.
With the title vacated by China’s Zhang Weili as she moves up a weight class, Brazilian-American Dern came out strong against Jandiroba, fighting behind a stiff jab that quickly pock-marked her opponent’s face.
Brazil’s Jandiroba had plenty of success taking Dern down to the mat, but the 32-year-old was more than comfortable fighting off her back and eventually leveraged her pinpoint striking to secure a unanimous decision victory on the judges’ scorecards.
(Reporting by Philip O’Connor, editing by Pritha Sarkar)
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