Bryan Battle left UFC Vegas 88 with a no-contest on his record, but he feels like it should be a win after an accidental eye poke rendered Ange Loosa unable to continue.
It was a thumb to the eye that paused the action in the second round of Saturday’s headliner. A doctor checked on Loosa as the UFC vet attempted to recover. At one point, Loosa told the official that he couldn’t see, and that was all that the referee needed to hear to wave off the fight.
Afterward, Battle got in Loosa’s face, and the welterweights exchanged some heated words before security intervened to separate them. Following the event, Battle addressed the altercation, and he said Loosa didn’t want to continue.
“Listen, I knew what kind of shape I was in coming into this fight,” Battle explained on the UFC Vegas 88 post-fight show. “I knew how hard I was hitting coming into this fight. I knew how good my grappling was coming into this fight. It doesn’t surprise me at all that anybody who feels any of that would look for a way out.
“I’m on a completely different level than what I used to be. Any time any of these guys in the whole division feel any of this, it’s going to feel a little bit different. This is high-level, this is top-notch. The fact that he crumbled the way he did and that he quit and then had the audacity to talk about wanting to fight after he had quit the fight, it all speaks for itself.”
Replays during the broadcast showed the eye poke from Battle that eventually prevented Loosa from continuing. But The Ultimate Fighter 29 alum didn’t believe there was that much damage done.
“It wasn’t even that [serious],” Battle said. “I guess it was a little fake shot, he didn’t commit very much, the bottom of his head hit my chin. I’m just trying to push him away. I grazed him a little bit, but he was fine. He saw an opportunity to get out of there, and he took that opportunity.”
An irate Battle exploded during a post-fight interview with Michael Bisping, launching into an expletive-filled diatribe aimed at Loosa.
With a chance to cool down backstage, Battle didn’t have quite as many harsh words to say about his opponent. But he was also not that interested in settling the score.
Battle considers his fight with Loosa as a win on his record, and ideally, he’ll move on to ranked competition when he books his next UFC bout.
“I don’t think he wants a rematch,” Battle said about Loosa. “I’m really looking forward. I feel like I won the fight. I feel like everyone watching knows I won that fight. I want someone in the rankings. I want to be in the video game. I want all that stuff. I whooped Ange’s ass. Technically, it will go down as a no-contest but anybody who watches that knows what happened.
“If they want to run it back, if the UFC says they want to run it back, I have zero problems with that, but I’m looking forward. I’m looking to move up the rankings.”
