Barry brings heavy blows

Pat Barry has the kind of concussive punching and kicking power that can take him a long way in the Ultimate Fighting Championship's heavyweight division, even if his cell phone is filled with voice mails and text messages telling him he's a fool to compete with the big boys of mixed martial arts.

He's 5 feet, 11¼ inches tall and weighs 230 pounds but is derided as a "midget" who would be better off fighting as a 205-pounder. Barry, who may be the most brutally honest man in MMA this side of Dana White, doesn't believe he's too small to be a factor at heavyweight.

And while he concedes he'd like to run into some of those anonymous Internet tough guys who fill his phone with venomous messages picking apart every aspect of his game, at least he's taking some of their advice to heart.

Barry, a one-time kickboxer in K-1, has moved to MMA and fashioned a 4-0 record. He's one of the many up-and-coming heavyweights that White, the UFC's outspoken president, is so excited about.

He meets Tim Hague on May 23 in UFC 98 at the MGM Grand Garden Arena in a bout for which he'll give up about five inches and 35 pounds. He's not bothered by that, though he does get irritated by the constant refrain of many of his critics to drop to light heavyweight.

But where Barry agrees with them is the need to shore up his wrestling and his jiu-jitsu.

"I've gotten better at defending the takedowns, and I've gotten a lot better at exploding back to my feet once I hit the ground," said Barry, whose childhood home in New Orleans was destroyed in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina. "I've gotten better at defending submissions. It's all coming.

"I'm a quick learner, and I'm a student of my trade. I've immersed myself in wrestling and jiu-jitsu. I've got Cliff Notes on wrestling and jiu-jitsu, and I have to catch up on the years and years of experience all these other guys have."

He probably never will earn a black belt in jiu-jitsu, and he probably is not going to qualify for the 2012 Olympic wrestling team. But he doesn't have to do either of those things to become one of the UFC's elite heavyweights.

He simply needs to become proficient at defending the takedown and must improve his submission defense. Barry has that rare kind of power that can knock down a man twice.

"When I talk about a guy like Pat Barry, I think it's smart to remember a kid like Thiago Alves," White said. "When Alves came to the UFC, all he was was a striker. He had nothing else. But he hooked up with a great team and he learned, and look at his takedown defense now. It's world class. Matt Hughes couldn't get him down [at UFC 85], and he's one of the greatest wrestlers ever in mixed martial arts.

"Pat has to get better at those things, but it's not like he's not capable of doing it. He's an extremely powerful guy, and if he develops in those other areas, he'll be right there with anyone in the heavyweight division."

Barry stopped Dan Evenson with kicks in the first round of his UFC debut at UFC 92 on Dec. 27 in Las Vegas, but that was not enough to satisfy his critics, who responded to his win by ridiculing Evenson.

It's part of the game, Barry is learning, but he's motivated to develop a more well-rounded game not only to silence the critics but also to increase the size of his paychecks.

He has the ability to become a big-time attraction with his power, but he still is scratching and clawing to survive. And while the life of a professional fighter might seem glamorous to some, Barry insists there isn't anything glamorous about scrimping and saving as you're trying to make a name for yourself.

"People come up to me and they say, 'Man, you're famous and you must be rich because I've seen you've got fights on YouTube,' " Barry said. "Rich? YouTube don't pay nothing. I'm still eating tuna out of a can, man."

But he'll be able to buy the biggest steaks he can find if he manages to gravitate toward the upper reaches of the UFC's heavyweight division.

The heavyweights typically are the sport's least talented fighters, but the UFC has developed a quality core of men who give the division the depth it hasn't had in years.

Men like champion Brock Lesnar and challengers Cain Velasquez, Shane Carwin and Junior Dos Santos, among others, aren't out of reach if Barry can continue his development.

"All those guys were questionable at one point or another, and some of them still have questions they need to answer," White said. "But they've developed and improved, and people see them differently now."

Barry said he barely could believe what he saw the first time he watched Velasquez, who probably is the UFC's top prospect.

Barry said fighters no longer are one-dimensional, but he said Velasquez takes being multidimensional to another extreme.

"I'm studying this stuff day and night because I have a very short period of time and I have to get this quick," Barry said of his wrestling and jiu-jitsu. "People don't 'just' punch and kick any more. They don't 'just' wrestle any more. There are no more Royce Gracies, where they'll just take you down and submit you. Everybody is good at everything.

"A prime example, the No. 1 example, a scary man who I don't want to see anytime soon, is Cain Velasquez. The first time I saw him fight, I had no idea he was not a striker. I thought, 'This guy is a badass kickboxer,' and he's beating guys to pieces. Afterwards, I found out he's not even a striker."

Barry laughed, knowing this is the type of guy he'll be facing before long.

"You see a guy strike like that and you think, 'He's got to have a long, long background as a kickboxer,' " Barry said. "No. The guy is a wrestler. He's a stud wrestler who happens to know how to punch and kick. That gave me chills.

"That right there is why I'm wrestling and doing jiu-jitsu 10 days a week. I'm doing it nonstop, almost, because I'm trying to get ready for guys like him. He's a super stud the world should watch out for. … Those are the kinds of guys I'm going to have to fight, so it's not a surprise what I'm doing in training. But I'm an athlete, and I know I can pick this up."

If he does, the UFC will have another sensation on its hands. Barry has the power to score a knockout with either hand or either leg, and that's a rare commodity in the fight game today.

He knows that if he lands, he has the ability to end the fight at any time.

"I've kicked people before in the legs, and you see it transfer to their face and they're going, 'Oh, wow,' " Barry said. "Everyone is this business has been hit hard before, but I hit scary hard.

"I'm a Mike Tyson-esque kick boxer. Tyson wasn't a pitty pat puncher who would beat you with accumulation. Every time Tyson hit you in the head, he was trying to make your ear fall off. Being that I'm seen as a smaller heavyweight, that's my goal. I have to hit you and end the fight as quickly as possible, especially in MMA, because if I fall to the ground, I'm in trouble right now."

Let him put his hands on you, though, and it's a different story.

"I have to make guys not want to come close to me at all," Barry said. "If I punch you, you'll think you've stepped on a land mine. If I kick you, it's over, no matter who you are and where it hits you. You're going to be hurt. Something's going off your body. I've hit guys and in my mind as they're laying there, I'm like, 'Damn, man. I don't ever want to know what that feels like.'

"That's what I do. I'm a finisher."