Alex Pereira reveals whether he thinks Tom Aspinall was ‘faking it’ after the eye poke at UFC 321

Alex Pereira insists no one can say Tom Aspinall ‘faked’ eye issues at UFC 321

Alex Pereira sent a message to Jones in his initial reaction to the UFC 321 main event and did not address the Aspinall vs Gane ending itself.

That finally changed almost a week on, when the reigning light heavyweight champion revealed which side of the debate he stands on during an interview with MMA Hoje.

“You can’t really know what happened,” Pereira said (translated by @ChampRDS via X). “Only he knows.

“I mean, we know he wasn’t doing so well in the fight, but we’ve seen situations where a guy isn’t doing great, then something happens, like a penalty, and the guy comes back better.

“Some people are saying he was faking it. Man, honestly, you can’t say that,” he added.

“It’s hard to understand. One poke seemed to go deeper in the eye, and he didn’t complain about it, but he grabbed the other one from the outside. But we don’t know the impact there either, you know?”

How Tom Aspinall could adjust for the expected Ciryl Gane rematch

While Alexander Volkov hoped his UFC 321 victory would have resulted in a title shot, he’ll likely now have to wait for a rebooked clash between the champ and ‘Bon Gamin’ to play out.

During his post-fight press conference, Dana White pointed to Aspinall vs Gane 2 as the likely next step after the disastrous ending to their main event at Etihad Arena.

Should that happen, ex-UFC welterweight Matt Brown has suggested the Briton could look to employ grappling after how the early minutes at UFC 321 played out.

“That was shaping up to be a great fight,” Brown said on The Ariel Helwani Show. “I was interested to see Aspinall’s game plan because it looked like he didn’t really push hard for any takedowns, and my guess is probably that he was just waiting for the right time.

“We have to assume that if he was able to land the takedown, it’d probably be a much easier fight for him,” he added.