Articles by EssentiallySports,Himanga Mahanta

Technology

Tom Aspinall’s Eye Turns Into a Medical Debate After French Doctors Call His UFC 321 Injury 'Superficial'

Was Tom Aspinall’s inability to continue fighting Ciryl Gane at UFC 321 a cop out? It was a double-eye poke, that too, in the heavyweight division. The move wasn’t intentional from Ciryl Gane, but was it bad enough for the referee to stop the fight? Well, a few doctors have given their verdict on the situation, and while Aspinall has found quite a bit of support, the popular opinion is that it may not have been as serious as the champion described. Tom Aspinall may have been aware that questions would be raised regarding his decision to stop fighting after getting poked. So, he made sure to release a video of the treatment he got for his eyes after the fight. The doctor who treated Aspinall’s eye shared his observations, which may not be music to the ears of the heavyweight champion’s fans. Let’s take a look. Was Tom Aspinall’s eye injury a ruse? Doctors explain The doctor in Abu Dhabi appeared to support referee Jason Herzog’s decision to stop the fight. But when it comes to his diagnosis, the doctor claimed that he found no serious injuries in Tom Aspinall’s eye. “Of course [it’s good that the referee stopped the fight]… But I didn’t find anything dangerous,” he said on Aspinall’s YouTube video. Meanwhile, the French MMA Federation’s Dr. Jean-Marc Sene added to what the UAE doctor said. He concluded that there were no severe lesions on the champion’s eye, and believes the injury was “superficial”, in that the impact took place on the outer part of his eye and not necessarily the inner. “The open eyelid is the cornea, the part that we are going to scratch. It hurts a lot, and it can cause problems. If we have closed eyes, closed eyelids, we will have compression lesions. With compression of the eye, we can imagine the vitreous in the eye, the retina in the back, we can imagine that we have lesions at this level. Here, of course, the fingers go in, but finally, we have the impression that it remains relatively superficial,” Dr. Sene told RMC Sport Combat.

Technology

Dana White’s Push for AI Judging Gains Solid Momentum After UFC 321 Chaos

On the other hand, Kamaru Usman pushed back against Henry Cejudo’s calls for AI use. Why? Well, he explained that ‘computers’ cannot determine a fighter’s condition in the way a human judge can. “Unless you put an impact chip or something on someone where you see their brain is rocked after getting hit with a shot, I don’t think we can equate that,” he responded. Well, Usman may not agree with Cejudo, but a Hall of Fame legend does. And he wants that implemented not just in the judging process, but in the ranking process as well. Another UFC legend had also called for AI in MMA Much like judging, rankings also create massive debates in the fight community. Just a few months ago, Reinier de Ridder made an 8-place rise in the middleweight rankings after his win over Robert Whittaker. But in his next fight at UFC Vancouver, where he took on someone who was ranked lower than him, Brendan Allen, on short notice, he gave up at the end of the fourth round after getting dominated. This left fans scratching their heads, and his ranking jump came into question. Was it biased? This certainly calls for AI, which Michael Bisping has been calling for even before the de Ridder situation. “First of all, AI. That is going to be implemented in the ranking system. We’ve seen Dana White [talk] about this for quite some time. He’s often had some issues, and there’s been some crazy rankings, to be honest,” Michael Bisping said earlier this year. “Having an AI ranking system that is going to remove all of the bias from it. It’s as simple as that, right? It’s that easy, ok? And they’ve used AI judges before. I think it was with Tyson Fury [vs Usyk] for Saudi Arabia. The AI judge agreed with the human judge, okay? So, essentially, they got it correct.” Well, there’s always one controversy or another in almost every UFC event, and in most cases, judging has been the primary issue, besides refereeing errors. Do you believe it will be good for the sport to adopt the use of AI in judging? Let us know in the comments down below.