DAN Kelly felt like his eye had been “ripped out”.

Rocked with a short right hand from Englishman Tom Breese, Kelly felt for his left eye in distress and uncharacteristically stumbled backwards to the cage.

He copped a solid right-left combination, fell to the canvas and cowered with his hands covering his head.

Within seconds, the UFC Liverpool fight was over, but the pain in Kelly’s left eye lingered.

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“I’ve never felt anything so excruciating,” Kelly said, speaking publicly for the first time since the fight on May 27.

“I felt like someone had stuck their finger all the way to the back of my eye.

“You’ve seen in previous fights the kind of punishment I’ve taken, but I haven’t had anything like this.

“I couldn’t see out of my eye for three days and it’s not getting any better.

“I’ve still got blurred vision. There’s no bone damage and there’s not orbital bone damage, but there’s damage to the eyeball.

“I’ve never felt such excruciating pain and I couldn’t see. It was very painful.”

media_camera Tom Breese lands a right hand to the head of Daniel Kelly. Picture: Getty Images

It was disastrous end for veteran Kelly, who was completing the final bout of his current UFC contract.

The four-time judo Olympian had enjoyed the best camp of his career — spending two weeks working under the watchful eye of Conor McGregor’s coach John Kavanagh — and was primed to snap a three-fight skid.

Having closed the range on Breese and worked his way into the fight, Kelly was rocked with 1:30 on the clock and did not survive the first round.

The Melburnian’s UFC career is now in limbo.

Asked if he believed he would earn another contract, the 40-year-old quipped: “I don’t know”.

“It would be a nice, fairytale end to my career if I could finish my career in Australia, even in Melbourne, but I haven’t been in contact with the UFC or anything.

“Everything’s up in the air.”

Kelly will visit a specialist on Thursday in a bid to determine to extent of the injury.

He received treatment in Liverpool in the hours after the fight, having been transported to a nearby hospital.

Cleared of any bone damage, he was told by medicos to seek further tests if his eye injury had not significantly improved by the time he returned to Australia.

media_camera Daniel Kelly couldn’t recover after copping a punch to the eye from Tom Breese.

Almost two weeks on, Kelly still has blurred vision.

“For me to go and see anyone for anything, it’s not good,” Kelly conceded.

“It’s bad, it’s blurry, I just can’t see.

“They gave me some ointment and said ‘it’s scratched, you’ll be OK’. It’s not OK.”

The outside of Kelly’s eye is also worse for wear.

“I threw my elbow across when he threw the uppercut and it’s ripped everything around my eye,” Kelly said.

“I had three small cuts and stitches as well, so it was a very unlucky punch, I guess.

“It’s frustrating because I had all my wits about me, but it was just agony.”

Before jetting home, Kelly revealed he spoke to Breese briefly at the hotel, where the Englishman stated that he struck him flush in the eye with the bare knuckle of his thumb.

“I thought it was an eye poke initially, but it was his thumb,” Kelly said.

“He was really respectful and gracious. He was awesome.”

With 10 fights in the UFC, Kelly’s record is now 6-4.