Aspinall Vacates UFC Heavyweight Title After Eye Setback
Tom Aspinall has vacated the UFC heavyweight title after saying ongoing eye complications have left him unable to get medically cleared. The 33-year-old made the announcement Monday rather than keep the division waiting on a return date he cannot set.
Aspinall has not completed a fight since he inherited the belt from retired champion Jon Jones. His first defense against Ciryl Gane at UFC 321 in October 2025 ended as a first-round no contest after eye pokes left him unable to continue.
He said the latest setback came after he had already agreed to a fight date and returned to sparring. An accident then caused further damage to his right eye.
āOngoing complications with my eyes mean I cannot get medically cleared to fight right now,ā Aspinall wrote. āIāve had multiple surgeries, accidents and infections, and done everything possible to get back to competing.ā
He asked the promotion to let him deliver the news himself. The point, he said, was to stop holding other heavyweights in place.
āIāve now made the decision to vacate the heavyweight title,ā Aspinall wrote. āIāve asked the UFC to allow me to make this statement because I donāt want to hold the heavyweight division up.ā
Hunter Campbell and the UFC had the tests and procedures throughout the process, according to the statement. Aspinall said specialists could not clear a return on a timeline that would keep the division moving.
āIām absolutely gutted,ā he wrote. āIāve chased this dream since I was 10 years old.ā
He also drew a line between the belt and the career. Vacating the title, he said, is not a retirement.
āIām not done,ā Aspinall wrote. āStepping away from the title is not stepping away from the sport or the dream.ā
Gane already holds the interim championship after a second-round TKO of Alex Pereira at UFC Freedom 250 on June 14. That result put the Frenchman first in line for the vacant undisputed belt.
Pereira has separately said he wants Gane again at Madison Square Garden. The vacancy now turns that rematch, or any other top-heavyweight booking, into a live title fight instead of an interim placeholder.
The pattern around the belt is the part that has followed the announcement online. Francis Ngannou left the UFC and the title was vacated. Jones retired and the title was vacated. Aspinall has now given it up because of the eye injury.
Home of Fight put that sequence in one post Monday. None of the last three UFC heavyweight champions lost the belt inside the cage.
That is the division Aspinall said he did not want to freeze. He knows what a stalled career feels like, he wrote, and he wanted other fighters to have a title to chase.
The medical file still sits over every next-step conversation. Aspinall said many of the complications he is dealing with came from fouls that changed the course of his first title defense.
There is no return date in the statement. He said he will keep working to get healthy, get cleared, and fight again as soon as that is possible.
Until then the heavyweight title is vacant at the undisputed level, Gane is the interim champion in position to be elevated or matched, and Aspinall is a former champion whose next fight depends on an eye that has not cooperated since October.