Bryan Battle and Ange Loosa got into a fight and then nearly got into another one after an eye poke ended their bout at UFC Vegas 88 on Saturday.
It was a dominant start from Battle but his thumb jabbed Loosa in the eye in the second round, which forced referee Mike Beltran to pause the action. As Loosa got time to recover, Beltran asked the doctor to enter the octagon to check on him.
Loosa attempted to recover with a cloth over his eye but he eventually uttered the dreaded words that he could not see and that was all the doctor needed to hear to prevent him from continuing. Beltran waved off the fight with the end coming at 1:00 into second round with the bout declared a no-contest.
After the decision was announced, Beltran made the mistake of walking away, which left Battle and Loosa face to face with each other but there was no handshake exchanged. Instead, Battle got in Loosa’s face and shouted “you’re a f****** p***** … I was whooping your ass!”
Before the fighters could begin throwing punches again, security intervened with Loosa being dragged away while shouting “I’ll f****** kill you!”
Following the disappointing conclusion, Battle erupted in an expletive filled tirade aimed at Loosa, who he accused of looking for a way out of the fight and that’s why he said he couldn’t continue.
“It’s tough because I put in all the work,” Battle said. “I was beating the s*** out of him. I did everything I wanted to do. You cannot tell me he wasn’t looking for a way out. F****** p***** b**** motherf*****. I’ll run it back next week, I don’t give a f***.”
Given the bad blood, it’s entirely possible the UFC runs this one back but that may all depend on the damage done to Loosa’s eye after he was unable to continue on Saturday night.