Dustin Jacoby is awaiting the result of an MRI on his knee after he suffered an injury during his knockout win over Julius Walker at UFC Vegas 113.
The incident occurred in the second round after Jacoby unloaded a devastating right hand that sent Walker crashing to the canvas. Referee Dan Miragliotta rushed in and it appeared he was going to stop the fight, but he ultimately decided to let the action continue.
In that moment, Walker grabbed onto a leg and it forced Jacoby to pull free before restarting his assault with the fight finally being stopped a few moments later after he dished out even more punishment. Jacoby says he actually turned to argue with Miragliotta because the referee bumped him and he though the fight was being stopped — but instead he was forced to defend himself and his knee may have been injured as a result.
“I’ve had Dan several times, and I’ve always had good luck with him,” Jacoby told MMA Fighting. “So I can’t complain. What I will say, when I dropped Julius that first time, he came in and he touched me with his chest and he waved his arm briefly, his left arm. So at that moment, I’m like you just stopped the fight! He backed up and he’s like ‘I didn’t stop the fight.’ I was like you touched me! He goes ‘I didn’t f*cking touch you, keep fighting.’ So at that moment, Julius had grabbed my leg pretty hard. While I’m arguing with Dan, I go to pull my leg out and I actually kind of tweaked my knee.
“I had to go get an MRI yesterday. I’m waiting to find out. I may have torn my meniscus again. My left meniscus was torn, I think I torn my right one during that moment right there.”
After Miragliotta declared that the fight wasn’t over, Jacoby had to reset while Walker was desperately turning to his wrestling while trying to recover from the knockdown.
Jacoby stuffed the attempt and started blasting away at Walker with elbows. He continued hammering away until it was clear that Walker was done and Miragliotta finally stopped the contest.
“When he said keep fighting, I knew right then and there the fight wasn’t done and I wasn’t just going to let him regain his consciousness or let him get settled,” Jacoby said. “So I just turned and went back to work and got him with a really nice uppercut there, which was the beginning of the end the second time.
“I could have made an excuse. I could have continued arguing with him, but I just knew right there, he said ‘I didn’t f*cking touch you.’ I knew the fight was going on. I had to do my job. I wasn’t going to let that dictate the outcome. I was going to dictate the outcome. I just kept fighting on.”
Immediately afterwards, Jacoby admits he didn’t feel any pain in his knee but a few minutes later he started noticing a problem.
Reflecting on what happened, Jacoby couldn’t pinpoint any other moment that would have led to the injury but he knows he had to violently pull his leg free after Walker grabbed onto him when Miragliotta didn’t stop the fight.
“Even after the fight, I was trying to think why does my knee hurt?” Jacoby explained. “I don’t ever recall taking a kick on the inside. It never hurt when I was kicking. I was like the only thing I can think of when he came up and touched me, when I tried ripping out, I think that’s when I kind of tweaked it. It had to have been. Nothing else happened.
“There I was after the fight because your adrenaline’s going, you don’t feel everything during the moment. Right after the fight, I just felt exhausted, I didn’t feel anything sore until 10 minutes [later after] you walk out of the cage you’re like holy shit, this hurts, this hurts, this hurts. That knee had to have been from that.”
While late stoppages usually only affect the person who ultimately took too much punishment, this time Jacoby believes he may have been the one to get hurt after the referee refused to pull the trigger to end the contest.
“It definitely affected me,” Jacoby said. “It injured me, which is kind of a big deal. I don’t know what’s going to come of that. It’s not like I’m going to be pressing charges or anything like that. It’s just crazy that happened.”
As far as the future goes, Jacoby expects to get the results from his MRI in the next day or two and that will determine how soon he can compete again.
When it comes to referee’s performance, Jacoby concedes that officials often endure a thankless job so he’s not holding any grudges and he won’t request a change if Miragliotta is chosen to oversee one of his future ifghts.
“Not necessarily. I don’t look into that hard,” Jacoby said. “At the end of the day, I can only control what I can control and I knew with him, I couldn’t control any of that. I could just control finishing the fight. That’s what I chose to do. I move on with it.
“Even afterwards, I shook Dan’s hand. I was like we’ve had great success together, I’m not holding anything against you, we’re just going to keep moving forward. But I hope I’m not out months from this. We’re going to see.”
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