Gegard Mousasi Feared Losing His Eye After Bellator Debut

Gegard Mousasi feared dealing with potentially losing his eye after making his Bellator debut.

Mousasi is the Bellator middleweight champion with a dominant title defense on his resume, but “The Dreamcatcher” thought he wouldn’t get the chance to reach this point. That’s because during a hard-fought promotional debut against Alexander Shlemenko, Mousasi’s eye took quite the beating. Mousasi won the bout via unanimous decision, but he was convinced that retirement loomed.

During a recent appearance on “The MMA Hour,” Mousasi talked about the horrifying experience:

“People didn’t see what happened after [the Shlemenko] fight. I was in a hospital. I couldn’t move and I didn’t know if I lose my eye or not. People didn’t see those parts. I didn’t know [if I lost my eye] because the doctors were talking. My eye was shut. They didn’t know what was wrong with my eye. So for a long time I was in the dark. So we didn’t know. Thank god it was no serious injury to the eye. But yeah, I can’t fight like that. I want to make money but I want to end up healthy. I don’t want to be a retard after three [fights].”

Mousasi can be at ease knowing that his eye is fine and his career has suddenly soared to even greater heights since. He stopped Rafael Carvalho in the first round to capture the Bellator middleweight title. He then battered welterweight champion Rory MacDonald in a “super fight” to retain his gold.