Dean Barry is not buying that his opponent Mike Jackson was unable to continue fighting.
The UFC newcomer thinks Jackson exaggerated the fouls sustained during their welterweight contest at Saturday’s UFC Fight Night 205 in Las Vegas. Barry (4-2 MMA, 0-1 UFC) lost his UFC debut via disqualification. Jackson was awarded the win after he was unable to continue fighting due to an eye gouge he sustained. The eye gouge wasn’t the only foul, as Jackson was also hit in the groin with a spinning back kick earlier in the round.
Barry thinks both incidents were played out by “The Truth.”
“To be honest with you, I thought he took the easy way out there,” Barry said in a video posted on his Instagram. “Didn’t want to stay, didn’t want to continue fighting. Even when I kicked him low, he was talking on the ground to me for ages. Like, if you get hit in the nuts, you can’t be talking like that. Same with the eye poke. Straight after the ref called the fight off, he was fine. Both eyes open perfectly. He said he can’t open his eyes.”
Although the fight was short, Barry feels he was en route to his first UFC victory. The Irishman would love to get a rematch with Jackson or get a fight in his more natural weight class – lightweight.
“Look, I’ll take the rematch in a heartbeat if they give it to me, or just let me go back down to my weight division and fight,” Barry said. “I thought I showed enough out there. Sorry about that. Thank you so much everybody for the support. This is the fight game, it happens. It’s not a loss for me, I was destroying him and I got a DQ for an eye poke. What can you do?”
