Dean Barry’s UFC debut ended in disappointing fashion, and he feels that his opponent should take some responsibility for it.
An ugly elbow resulted in Barry’s first appearance in the octagon. His fingers got into Mike Jackson’s eyes. Referee Chris Tognoni was able to disqualify Barry and awarded Jackson a victory.
Shortly thereafter, Barry used social media to discuss the matter and accused Jackson of exaggerating his foul to his advantage.
— Dean Barry (@deanbarry92) April 23, 2022
” To be completely honest, I felt he chose the easier route out,” Barry stated in a video. “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. You can’t talk like this if your head is buried in the ground. Same with the eye poke. Straight after the ref called the fight off, he was fine. He could see perfectly with both eyes. He said he can’t open his eyes.
“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. It was enough. Sorry about that. … It’s not a loss for me, I was destroying him and I got a DQ for an eye poke. What can you do?”
Barry posted these tweets on Twitter and Instagram :
Here lads, I’m fine in good spirits and I’ll be able to compete at my regular weight class. Genuinely didn’t mean that eye poke I’m not one of them fighters and I’m gutted it was a DQ I was winning it by a good bit too. It’s the name of them game onto the next
— Dean Barry (@deanbarry92) April 23, 2022
The action was actually paused twice in Barry’s fight before the fateful eye gouge, as two of his strikes landed low. Neither foul resulted in a point deduction, though Tognoni issued a stern warning to Barry after the second one.
After taking a spin kick to the groin, Jackson could be heard on the broadcast saying, “a spinning back kick to the d*** … that motherf*****.”
Barry appeared to be winning the fight, as he had scored a knockdown of Jackson before being disqualified for the eye gouge at the 3:52 mark of Round 1. He falls to 4-2 as a pro, while Jackson scores the first win of his UFC and MMA career in his third try with the promotion. This was also Jackson’s first fight since June 2018.
