Mike Jackson was ready to let it all go.
Just seconds after his third UFC bout ended due to an eye injury that rendered him blind, Jackson was contacted by Dean Barry for an apology. Barry claimed that his actions were not intentional, despite being disqualified from the fight by Chris Tognoni. Jackson raised his hand in victory, even though it wasn’t the way he wanted. However that was all that mattered to him.
That all changed after Jackson saw a replay of the foul in question, which was followed by a post from Barry on his now deleted Twitter account where he accused the 37-year-old welterweight of looking for “the easy way out” when he was unable to continue.
” I was done,” Jackson stated when speaking to Barry about The Fighter vs. The Writer . “He could have just left it at that. “He could just have said, in the ring: “I’m sorry. My bad. Not my intent.” It didn’t take long to say “Mike quit.” That’s exactly what I am saying.
” You’re trying for victory at this stage. You’re trying to look good. You’re trying to impress people. Whatever your strategy is. It’s not smart. He had to remove his Twitter account because he was a dumbass. He is responsible for all of this. He literally did all this to himself and he tries to blame me for quitting.”
According to Jackson, he’s certain that Barry knowingly cheated because of how the eye gouge occurred after an exchange against the fence following a separate foul where he suffered a brutal low blow from a spinning back kick.
“I’m going to get into why I feel that it was intentional and why Dean Barry is a dirty cheating motherf***** — initially as it happened, I saw his two fingers, I was literally looking at two fingers in my eye and I’m like ‘oh s*** his hand is in my eye'” Jackson explained. The pain is intense, but I only saw two fingers. Although they looked straight and didn’t appear curled, I still felt pain. That’s why he poked my face.
“Then I watched the replay later and I see the eye gouge, which is really wild. To be honest, I wish that I had seen the replay before I began doing interviews after the fight. I might have had an entirely different perspective. He bent his hands, turned around and wentuged. These actions indicate that it was deliberate and give me a hypothesis about how this happened. The point, I watched the replay and I’m like that motherf***** gouged my eye. I was hit with the Pai Mei eye-gouge .”
Prior to the eye gouge, Jackson says he was already compromised from the low blow that left him writhing in pain on the canvas.
Now that move Jackson knows wasn’t on purpose but that didn’t make it hurt any less when it happened, which is why he fell to the floor while trying to recover.
“He missed the target, but he threw it,” Jackson stated. He missed his target. His foot’s trajectory meant that his heel caught mine and he took me. That’s what happened. People tell me that he was lying because he was speaking. I do not understand.
“I was in pain but I can still talk. This is just me. It’s still pain. It doesn’t matter if I am in pain, it doesn’t mean that I cannot talk .”
Jackson told Tognoni he was going to need the full five minutes given for a low blow to recover but then he started to think about the game plan he was attempting to execute in the opening round.
Jackson researched his opponent and determined Barry would be his most dangerous for the first five minutes. However, he knew that Barry would lose steam after this point.
With his entire strategy centered around making Barry tired so he could then start picking him apart on the feet, Barry didn’t want to allow his opponent any more time to rest while he was attempting to recover from the shot to the groin, which was actually the second in the fight.
” When I return, my body has already been damaged by two [low blows],” Jackson statements.
Following the eye gouge, Jackson says he was still feeling the after effects from the spinning back kick and that combined with his sight now being compromised as well was just more than he could take to safely continue in the fight.
“[The doctor is] asking me ‘what do you think?’ and I’m like, also, my balls are still burning from the spinning back kick so now I’m dealing with hurt balls and I’ve got one eye,” Jackson said. When I lay on my back from the nut shots, I was having a debate about whether I should just quit or keep going. I was like no, f*** that, we’re going to get this one back.
“After the eye gouge, I can’t see. You gouged my eye, and I am now completely blinded from the pain of my eyes burning. I’m blinking and can’t see. There’s no way I’m going to continue this fight.”
Jackson won by disqualification. It wasn’t until late that night at his hotel, when Barry finally told him about the stoppage.
After an unfavorable ending, what was supposed to have been an amicable end result turned into Jackson shaming Barry for not only his comments but also for the reckless actions taken inside the cage.
“Dean Barry, a dirty f ****** fighter. Jackson stated that it was. Jackson said, “Now, you are making excuses for all your wrongdoings?” I did not kick myself twice. Pai Mei’s eye snatching method didn’t make my eyes gouge. These things were done by Dean.
“He’s going to say to the people I’m the one who quit. This is white fragility. He must then delete all of his tweets, as he is a part of the ***.. He’s a dirty cheating fighter.”
Jackson returned home a few days after the fight. He said that his eye had been “scratched”, but no significant damage was done by the foul.
After a four year absence from UFC, Jackson doesn’t know what the future holds. However, he admitted that he didn’t try to knock down UFC’s doors trying to get another fight after he beat CM Punk in 2018..
Given what happened at UFC Vegas 52, Jackson feels motivated from his altercation against Barry enough to admit that he would be happy to fight again if offered.
” In spite of the fact that they suggested ‘let’s run it again,’ I don’t think they would do that. But in the unlikelyness that they suggest running it back 100% Jackson stated. “I still stand by my actions and my words going into the fight. I’m a stronger fighter than him.
” If the opportunity is never presented, cool. Now, I have fought in 3 different decades. I’m 2-1 as a pro MMA fighter. 2-1 in the UFC. My other combat sports record 5-1 outside of MMA so I’m 7-2 as a combat sports pro. I’m cool with that.”
