Pat Barry had just floored his idol, Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic, for the second time in the first round of their UFC 115 bout with a beautiful right hand that landed flush on the Croatian’s skull, and he knew immediately that he’d broken his hand in the process.

“The world couldn’t see it because the camera wasn’t close enough to my face, but as soon as I broke my hand – that was the second punch I landed that knocked him down – as soon as it happened, my lip was starting to tremble, and for two reasons. One, it hurt terribly. I never would have guessed that it was only one broken bone. I felt like all the bones in my hand were, like, entirely disintegrated.”

“We were on the ground in the second and he was on top of me punching me and he asked me what was wrong,” said Barry. “He said, ‘What’s wrong with you? Why’d you stop fighting?’ I told him, ‘I broke my hand,’ and he was like, ‘Bullsh*t.’ I said, ‘No sir. My hand is broken. That hand is gone.’”

Barry made it to the third round that night before finally being overwhelmed by a late surge from “Cro Cop.” A sharp punch combo in the final minute dropped him, and a few seconds later Filipovic slapped on a rear naked choke that Barry, with his broken claw of a right hand, was unable to defend.

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