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Pat Barry growing sick of critics

Pat Barry and Stefan Struve have a significant height difference in their heavyweight contest this weekend © Getty Images

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Heavyweight Pat Barry has brushed aside his critics, claiming he will never please everybody no matter how successful he becomes in the UFC.

At 5ft 11 Barry is one of the division's smallest competitors, and he is currently fighting an uphill battle after three losses in his last five fights. The 32-year-old currently holds a 3-3 UFC record, something he hopes to improve against 6ft 11 Stefan Struve.

Barry's record could look significantly better if he had closed out two bouts that he appeared to have in his back pocket. First he allowed Mirko Cro Cop off the hook despite knocking the Croatian down twice, and then he snatched defeat from the jaws of victory when a dazed Cheick Kongo turned out Barry's lights back in June.

The fight with Cro Cop seemingly saw Barry show too much respect to one of his all-time heroes, ending in defeat by rear-naked choke, while the clash with Kongo arguably saw Barry become too cavalier in his attempts to finish. In his eyes, he will always be a target for critics.

"Fighters can't win for nothing," Barry stated, according to 5thround. "Even with a win, we lose.

"I've got a one second knockout, where the ref said 'Fight', I throw a high-kick and knock the guy out and people still got on the internet and said I have the stupidest haircut they had ever seen, or that they hate my shorts.

"We can't win, ever. No matter what happens.

"Like in the Cro Cop fight, I punch him in the head, knock him down but I don't jump on top of him and people say, 'You're not aggressive enough. You don't have no killer instinct. You showed him too much respect'.

"So in the Kongo fight, I punch him in the head, knocked him down and jumped on top of him and the exact same people, because I never erase the messages, are saying, 'You shouldn't have jumped on top of him. Too much killer instinct.'"

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