UFC
QUOTABLES: Coach Greg Jackson glad doctors didn't check St. Pierre's eye during UFC 129 fight with Jake Shields
May 4, 2011 - 1:00:38 PM QUOTABLES: Coach Greg Jackson glad doctors didn't check St. Pierre's eye during UFC 129 fight with Jake Shields

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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

"I guess the blood was blocking his vision in there. He couldn't see anything. When I looked into his eye, I could tell he couldn't see out of it... Sometimes you just have to be a warrior and fight through these injuries and then afterward you can take care of yourself and make sure you heal correctly. That's what we did. I was glad the doctor wasn't called in and that we were able to get him refocused and concentrating on winning...

Georges was getting hit with punches that he usually wouldn't get hit with. He was having a hard time taking the offensive and wasn't able to balance out his attack on the left side very well because the eye was closed there... If you've got one eye, no depth perception, it's really hard to see those right hands coming. Your depth perception's off, so your punches are a little bit off as well. It's a very scary thing. For Georges to do what he did, to fight bravely through that, that gives me a lot of respect for him...

Especially when the eye was damaged and he couldn't see things on that side, I think he felt a lot more comfortable when he could circle and move away from stuff. Jake is incredibly dangerous in that butterfly guard. That was one place we didn't want to be. When he got there, we were going to extract ourselves and then attack again. If we would have landed into regular guard or any other position, we could have utilized more ground-and-pound. He did exactly what he was supposed to...

I felt like if we could do enough damage standing up and then some good ground-and-pound, Georges might have a good chance of submitting him. He could also knock him out on the feet. We were trying to finish, but I think what threw us off of that whole plan was Georges' eye. When he got that eye poked, he couldn't see things happening. He just wasn't himself."

-UFC Welterweight Champion Georges St. Pierre's strategy coach Greg Jackson talks to Sherdog.com about St. Pierre's performance against Jake Shields at UFC 129.

Penick's Analysis: The gameplan makes sense, and you could see part of it being implemented early, but things got thrown out the window for St. Pierre when he stopped being able to see. They got lucky doctor's didn't come in to check the eye, because the fight would have been stopped the moment he said he couldn't see. Who knows how that would have gone down at that point in the fight as far as what the result would have been, but it's a moot point anyway because the fight wasn't stopped.