After suffering the third loss in his past four fights at the hands of Lavar Johnson during Saturday night’s UFC on Fox 3 event in East Rutherford, NJ, some UFC fans are already calling for the release of Pat Barry.
Barry fell victim to a brutal knockout after Johnson unloaded everything he had in his tank near the end of the first round. His record in the Octagon has now fallen to a paltry 4-5 and he has still never defeated a fighter who is anywhere near the top 10 in the heavyweight division.
So should he get another chance?
For this writer, the answer is simple—of course he should.
I understand that the UFC is where the best of the best come to fight. Perhaps Barry’s loss on Saturday night proved that he does not belong in the conversation of “best of the best.” Fair enough.
But isn’t the sport about more than that?
In a division full of mammoths who often come out very flat and grind to agonizingly boring decisions, Pat Barry has been a tremendous breath of fresh air. In his nine fights for the company, Barry has only ever gone to one decision—a memorable three-round fight against Joey Beltran that saw “The Mexicutioner” literally collapse to the ground after the third round due to the amount of damage he sustained from leg kicks.
As his record would indicate, it hasn’t always been Barry who has come out on the positive side of the finishes, but the fact is that when you see his name on a fight card, you can bet your bottom dollar that he will be in an extremely entertaining fight.
Certainly being entertaining alone cannot keep Pat Barry’s job in the UFC. I get that. But when a guy like Dan Hardy, who has lost four straight bouts in the UFC, can keep his job, it becomes increasingly difficult to understand why some people are trying to put an end to Barry’s run in the UFC.
If the UFC cuts Pat Barry after this performance, they are making a huge mistake. He’s one of the most exciting fighters on the roster and he makes just about every fight interesting. He needs to be given another shot to prove to everyone that he still belongs in the Octagon.
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