Irish MMA star Dean Barry has signed an exclusive deal with fighting organisation Karate Combat.
The Dubliner, who holds a professional MMA record of 4 wins and 2 defeats has put pen to paper with the karate organisation, and will make his debut on August 27th in Orlando Florida.
The Tallaght native has a big reputation in the sport of MMA, and has in the past labelled 'The Notorious' Conor McGregor as someone who inspires him. Back in 2017, Barry trained with legendary UFC fighter Georges St Pierre ahead of GSP's fight with Michael Bisping.
The 30 year-old most recently fought for the UFC back in April. During his octagon debut, Barry was controversially disqualified after being deemed by the referee to have gouged the eyes of his opponent Mike Jackson.
Barry denied that he made contact with his opponents eyes on purpose, stating afterwards that any contact was accidental. In a later statement issued via his now deleted Twitter account, Barry accused Jackson, who is most famous for sending former WWE star CM Punk packing from the UFC, of “taking the easy way out”, questioning whether Jackson was that badly hurt in the first place.
“He didn’t want to continue fighting,” Barry said at the time.
“Straight after the ref called the fight off he was fine. Both eyes opened perfectly even though he said he can’t open his eyes.”
Predictably, Jackson was enraged by Barry’s comments.
“You’re trying to win at this point. You’re trying to look good. You’re trying to impress people. Whatever your strategy is. But it’s not a smart strategy.
That’s why he had to delete his Twitter, for being a dumb***. That all falls on him. He literally did all this to himself and he tries to blame me for quitting.”
All that is behind Barry now and he will make his debut for his new employer in a little over a months time.
Karate Combat president Adam Kovacs was thrilled to sign the Irish star and even hailed him as having the potential to be a champion in the organization.
“Dean Barry is a fighter we've had on the radar for a long time and he was also recommended to us by Georges St-Pierre himself, as GSP brought him in as a sparring partner when he was preparing to fight Michael Bisping for the UFC middleweight championship.
“Dean is an outstanding karate fighter and we were delighted to see him reach the UFC himself.
He was unlucky with what happened there and you could say maybe even unfairly treated, but had been following Karate Combat the whole time and when he saw his friend Ross Levine winning the middleweight world title at our last event, he decided he wanted one of those belts for himself and reached out to us.
“We got the deal done and I'm excited to see him debut at Karate Combat 35 on August 27 in Orlando, Florida. We already have one Irish champion. If Dean Barry goes on to win a belt then I guess it's going to be true what they say: the Irish don't come to take part, they come to take over!”
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