Jackson Glad Doctor Didn’t Check St. Pierre’s Eye

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Greg Jackson, one of Georges St. Pierre’s trainers, knew his fighter couldn’t see out of his left eye.

Midway through their welterweight title fight Saturday at UFC 129, Jake Shields inadvertently poked GSP. Jackson saw the poke’s impact in the corner between rounds.

“I guess the blood was blocking his vision in there,” Jackson said Monday on the Sherdog Radio Network’s “Beatdown” show. “He couldn’t see anything. When I looked into his eye, I could tell he couldn’t see out of it.”

Yet St. Pierre fought on to keep his title via unanimous decision.

“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,” Jackson said. “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.”

Jackson expects St. Pierre to take “a month or so” off to let his eye heal. In the meantime, the champion is catching some criticism for not finishing Shields. The trainer thinks the harsh words are unnecessary.

“Georges was getting hit with punches that he usually wouldn’t get hit with,” Jackson said. “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.”

Even after the poke, St. Pierre was able to hurt Shields with a head kick in the fourth round. Rather than work on the ground, though, he seemed to want Shields on the feet.

“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,” Jackson said. “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.”

The St. Pierre camp was confident he could finish Shields in multiple ways, but Jackson said a damaged eye changed the game.

“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,” Jackson said. “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.”

Listen to the full interview (beginning at 1:20:00).