On a recent episode of JRE MMA Show, Joe Rogan and kickboxing legend Rico Verhoeven stepped up for UFC Heavyweight Champion Tom Aspinall following a wave of fan backlash over his decision to stop a fight because of an eye poke.
The topic arose when Rogan asked Verhoeven if he had ever worked with Aspinall. The connection turned out to run deeper than most fans would have guessed.
“Of course. He’s a very good friend of mine,” Verhoeven said. “We trained so much already for like, I think, close to 10 years.”
Rogan was direct about where he stands. “Man, he got a bad deal,” Rogan said. “The way people got upset at him for stopping the match with those eye pokes, that to me drove me crazy. Like what do you expect the guy to do? He’s defending the heavyweight title. He gets poked in the eyes and he can’t f**king see. And he’s had two eye surgeries since then.”
Verhoeven backed Aspinall while also showing some understanding for fans who were frustrated. “He’s the nicest guy and he works incredibly hard,” Verhoeven said. “I understand where it comes from from the people to a certain extent because they feel like, hey, Gane was doing so good in the beginning of the match. But it was just the beginning of the match. It was just like the first round or whatever. The match ain’t over till it’s over.”
He then addressed the notion that Aspinall used the eye poke as an excuse to step away from a tough spot, dismissing it entirely.
“He would never, never in whatever world do that,” Verhoeven said.
Rogan agreed, saying that Aspinall was truly affected due to the eye poke. He said, “because he was knuckled deep in his eye.”
Neither man placed personal blame on Ciryl Gane. “I know Ciryl as well. He’s also a very nice guy and I do not believe he’s doing that intentionally,” Verhoeven said.
Rogan argued that the issue of eye pokes in MMA needs a structural fix, pointing specifically to glove design. “One of them is change the gloves,” he said. “They could cover the tip of it like a mitten, and there’s a way to do that where it would probably eliminate a lot of the eye pokes.”
He closed the subject with a clear verdict on where responsibility falls in the Aspinall situation. “He got fouled. It’s not because of a punch. It’s not because of he got kicked or an elbow. It’s a foul. The match should have been stopped the way it was. It’s not his fault. It was his opponent’s fault.”
