White, on one of his stories, paid tribute to late
Ultimate Fighting Championship flyweight Allan
Nascimento, who tragically passed away in his sleep at just 34
years of age due to a heart attack. The UFC CEO's next story showed
him smoking a cigar, with the caption reading, “Great Day.â€

‘Dana messed up this one': Renato Carneiro calls out UFC CEO's
insensitive post

While the posts are clearly unrelated, fans subsequently pointed
out White's insensitive order of posts on Instagram, catching the
attention of Carneiro, who previously mourned his compatriot after
hearing the tragic news.

“Damn, man… Dana messed up on this one, posted the kid’s photo and
then the cigs and we’re just enjoying we’re just enjoying!!??†The
UFC lightweight wrote on X. “We really are just passing through
this cruel big world! Only Jesus saves.â€

Carneiro returned to winning ways earlier this year, defeating
Chris
Duncan to bounce back from consecutive losses to Islam
Makhachev and Beneil
Dariush.

Whittaker (27-9) has a new range of opponents available after
moving up to light heavyweight. “The Reaper†is eyeing fellow
former
Ultimate Fighting Championship champion Magomed
Ankalaev, who defeated Bogdan
Guskov at
UFC Abu Dhabi last month.

Robert Whittaker discusses Magomed Ankalaev, Paulo Costa and
UFC light heavyweight matchups

While Whittaker admits Guskov would have been an exciting opponent
as well, he also would have been interested in Jan
Blachowicz if not for the Polish 205-pounder's loss to Navajo
Stirling at
UFC Belgrade. While Paulo Costa
has momentum behind him, Whittaker would rather fight others,
having already beaten “Borrachinha†in a middleweight bout in
2024.

Whittaker also clarified that he will not fight his teammates
Stirling and Carlos
Ulberg, the current champion.

“I'd love to get in there with like Ank. Jan just had a loss but
would've loved to have jumped in there with him,†Whittaker said on
the “Believe You Me†podcast. “Bogdan would've been great; anyone
up. People keep throwing the name Costa out there, but I've fought
him before; there's a lot of other guys out there. I won't fight
the boys that I train with. If we reach a point where we're 1, 2
and 3, with me, Carlos and now Nav, I'm sure we can all sit down
and find a way to get paid.â€

Stirling also recently dismissed the idea of fighting Ulberg and
Whittaker, highlighting the camaraderie they share at
City Kickboxing in Auckland, New Zealand.

Whittaker recently moved up to light heavyweight after back-to-back
losses at middleweight. The Australian overcame early adversity to
knock out Nikita
Krylov at
UFC 329.

Giuseppe CACACE / AFP

UFC commentator Joe Rogan has defended UFC heavyweight champion Tom Aspinall against critics of his eye injury.

Ever since his fight against Ciryl Gane, Tom Aspinall has been getting a lot of hate online. One of the big reasons for that is that some felt as if he ‘quit' the fight, implying that he was exaggerating his eye injuries that came as a result of repeated eye pokes from Gane.

RELATED: Tom Aspinall ready to go for title unification rematch with Ciryl Gane, waiting on UFC to ‘let us know'

Given that he's now had multiple surgeries on his eyes, you would have to imagine that Aspinall legitimately couldn't see, making the decision to stop fighting a pretty good one.

In a recent episode of his podcast, Joe Rogan defended Aspinall.

Rogan defends Aspinall against critics

“He got a bad deal,†Rogan said. “He got really f*cked over for that fight. The way people got upset at him for stopping the fight with those eye pokes, to me that drove me crazy. What do you expect the guy to do? He's defending the heavyweight title. He's defending the heavyweight title. He gets poked in the eyes and he can't f*cking see and he's had two eye surgeries since then.â€

“I just hate that fans reacted the way they reacted – and it's the casual ones, it's the s**theads,†Rogan said. “For me, I was like, ‘God, you've got give the guy some grace. He got his eye poked out.' He literally was knuckle-deep in his eyes.

“For anyone to think that he should be fighting with one eye like that, ‘Who cares? Keep fighting,' that's insane. He got fouled. It's not because of a punch, it's not because he got kicked or an elbow, it's a foul. So no, the fight should have been stopped the way it was and everybody should understand that. It's not his fault. It was his opponent's fault.â€

Quotes via MMA Fighting

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