Pereira Addresses Aspinall Quit Allegations – ‘Some Are Saying He Was Faking It’
Alex Pereira has addressed suggestions that Tom Aspinall ‘faked’ his eye injury.
Aspinall’s first UFC Heavyweight Title defense ended in a no-contest at UFC 321 after Ciryl Gane’s eye poke in the first round prevented him from continuing. The champion faced criticism, with some feeling he should have carried on. Alex is known for fighting through injuries, having done so on numerous occasions.
Alex did so when he broke his toe weeks before he took on Jamahal Hill at UFC 300, and yet, he still stopped his man. Most recently, Alex also stopped Magomed Ankalaev to regain his UFC Light Heavyweight Title at UFC 320, despite breaking his foot following a leg kick. However, when it came whether Aspinall could have continued, Alex remained coy.
Pereira Reacts
“You can’t really know what happened. 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. 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?,” Alex said
Elsewhere, Pereira has hit back at suggestions by Joaquin Buckley that he ducked him after their 2022 fight allegedly fell apart. Pereira reclaimed his light heavyweight belt at UFC 320, where he avenged his defeat by beating Magomed Ankalaev in a rematch via a first-round TKO this month. Prior to that, Pereira was campaigning at middleweight where he stopped Israel Adesanya at UFC 281 in 2022 to become the middleweight champion.
Before Pereira faced Adesanya for the first time, Buckley claimed that he had an offer to fight Alex at middleweight, but it was Pereira who turned it down. Pereira did not take kindly to Buckley’s claims, saying he was the one who was ducking, after sharing some text messages between the two.
“He (Alex Pereira) wasn’t able to take the fight because they said they wouldn’t be ready in time. I was planning on knocking that man out,” Buckley said
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