After brutal UFC Tampa KO, Dustin Jacoby still wonders ‘What if …’

TAMPA, Fla. – Dustin Jacoby’s right hand has made him an extra $50,000 a year each of the past three years.

Thanks to that fist, Jacoby put away Da Woon Jung in 2022 and picked up a post-fight bonus. He took out Kennedy Nzechukwu in the first round in 2023 for another $50K. And this past Saturday, Jacoby (20-9-1 MMA, 8-6-1 UFC) knocked out Vitor Petrino (11-2 MMA, 4-2 UFC) in the third round at UFC on ESPN 63.

This time, the bonus that came at Amalie Arena in Tampa, Fla., was of major importance because it came on the heels of a two-fight skid to former light heavyweight title challenger Dominick Reyes and Alonzo Menifield. The win over Nzechukwu came after back-to-back losses to Azamat Murzakanov and recent title challenger Khalil Rountree.

The bonus Jacoby picked up this time was in the wake of some rare displeasure from the Tampa fans, who were prone to fits of booing during Jacoby’s fight – including a hardcore round of panning of the fight just before Jacoby’s highlight-reel finish.

“We put in a lot of work, and something we preached the whole time was patience,” Jacoby said during his post-fight news conference. “I’m the type of fighter, I hate sitting back. I want to be exciting. I could hear the fans booing, but it was all part of the game plan. I loved how I fought that first (round). My coaches loved how I fought that first round. And the second round was the same way. I was really trying to bait it out of him, trying to get him to throw hard and catch him.

“After the second round, coach told me, ‘I love what you’re doing – just got to pick it up a little bit. Now we’ve got to pick it up. I can see it being 1-1, and you don’t want this going to the judges’ decision.’ So in the third round, I knew I just had to pull the trigger at some point. I was just waiting for that moment, and I found it perfectly. I couldn’t be happier.”

Unfortunately for Jacoby, something big like a win over Petrino also gives a reminder of the types of fights he’s lost in recent years that could easily have gone the other way. In particular, his split decision loss to Rountree a little more than two years ago is one that still stings.

Jacoby thinks he won that fight, and had one more judge agreed on one more round, he would’ve had a 10-fight unbeaten streak, would’ve been 6-0-1 in his second UFC stint, and who knows – he might’ve been on a different path.

Rountree won two more fights after he beat Jacoby and got a title shot at UFC 307 against champ Alex Pereira. Could Jacoby have been there, instead, if that fight had gone his way? Maybe. But even a rematch at this point seems like an exercise in futility since at least Jacoby knows what he felt in the cage.

“It doesn’t really matter to me. At the end of day, I don’t really lose sleep over it,” Jacoby told MMA Junkie. “The Rountree fight, I’m still really, really, really bitter about that – and it’s nothing toward him. He’s a great fighter, great competitor, great warrior. It just took a lot of wind out of the sail. It ruined (and) killed a lot of momentum, and I just truly believe (I won that fight). I looked that guy in the eyes after the fight – we looked at each other. We both knew, and I was just shocked as could be when (he got the decision).

“But that is more than two years ago, and I’ve just got to focus on what’s next. I’m the one that went through those fires. Everybody can talk from the outside, but I was the one inside the octagon. I know what I felt, and I know I’m one of the best with what I bring to the table.”

Check out Jacoby’s full post-fight interview above.