On Oct. 20, fans saw Gegard Mousasi struggle through his Bellator debut, battling a clearly hurt eye en route to a narrow decision win over Alexander Shlemenko.

A lot of them were quick to voice their feelings about it, too.

What most didn’t get to see, though, was the fight’s rough aftermath.

“They brought me (the the hospital) with the stretcher,” Mousasi told MMAjunkie. “I wasn’t able to move. I had my doctor with me. I had my other doctor, that did my knee surgery. They were talking about my eye; I thought I’d lost my eye. For a long time, it wasn’t certain what was wrong in my eye.

“People don’t see those parts. It was a tough time, I can tell you that. Still, sometimes, when I look in the mirror, my eye shape is a little bit different. And yeah, it bothers me. But this is fighting.”

Mousasi pauses, then laughs.

“What can I say?” Mousasi said. “Maybe I should have been a dentist or something, I don’t know.”

Mousasi suffered a broken orbital bone that ended up not requiring surgery. While the eye was closed shut for a couple of days, he didn’t get double-vision. He’s ultimately thankful for the fact that it wasn’t as serious as it could have been and that he can still fight.

“Thank God, I can see clearly,” Mousasi said. “That’s the most important thing.”

But looking at photographs and finding his eye looking “crooked” might take some getting used to.

“The pupil is a little bit bigger than the other one,” Mousai said. “But that’s only in the sunshine. I don’t know. It’s not the same anymore.

“After my career, I can get it fixed. This sport doesn’t make me any prettier. Not that I was pretty (before), but it’s not a good thing.”

This wasn’t the first time Mousasi had been injured in a fight. He’s had his shoulder hurt after Hector Lombard threw him in the first round of a PRIDE encounter in 2006. He’d had two surgeries to repair his ACL – which, he adds, was absent when he met Ilir Latifi, leading to his knee constantly popping throughout their UFC bout in 2013.

Mostly, though, Mousasi had been fortunate enough not to take too much damage during his 51-fight MMA career.

“I paid in this fight,” Mousasi said with a laugh. “I made it up for all these fights I didn’t get injured.”

Of course, the injury ended up playing a major role in a Bellator debut that proved much tougher than most expected – perhaps due to the fact that Mousasi, one of MMA’s hottest free agents for a while, was coming off of a five-fight, four-finish winning streak in the UFC.

“Of course, going into the fight I felt that I was the better fighter,” Mousasi said. “But after the first minute, he broke my orbital and it changed the whole fight. There was no gameplan. Once he hit me, I knew my eye was it. So I grabbed him, I took him down.

“I was desperately looking for the submission, because I knew the fight could have been stopped. I knew I had a bad injury, so it changed the whole fight. It made the fight very even, I believe.”

Mousasi ultimately walked away from the battle with underdog Shlemenko with unanimous 29-28 scorecards, but not everyone agreed with the call. That includes seven of the 11 media members tracked at MMADecisions.com and Shlemenko, who felt “robbed.”

With that bit, though, Mousasi will have to disagree. After going back and watching it, the middleweight believes he won rounds 1 and 2, while Shlemenko clearly took the third. Considering the scoring system is round-by-round, and no point deductions or knockdowns were involved, that makes the math behind it easy.

Had he believed he lost, Mousasi says, he would have gladly owned up to it. Hence, the admission that the majority draw with Keith Jardine, back in 2011, was fair within the rules. Given that’s not the case now, he has a message to those who still disagree.

“To these people that say I lost, I can tell them I will never give Shlemenko a rematch and they can suck it,” Mousasi said with a laugh. “I’m going to take this victory to my grave and I don’t care. I won. Like I said, the guy is tough. I’m fighting the champion next. People don’t know him that well, but he’s the champion for a reason.

“Sometimes, fans, they’re not well-educated. Sometimes, they’re children, I don’t know. They look like 14-year-old people that write on social media. I don’t know how seriously I have to take that.”

Mousasi’s tongue-in-cheek approach to criticism, however, doesn’t mean he doesn’t apply some of it on himself. As a fighter, he admits, you carry certain expectations as for how you’re going to finish a fight. Taking a narrow decision, it turns out, isn’t one of them.

“It bothered me a lot, actually,” Mousasi said.

But, at the same time, he has to take into consideration what he was able to accomplish while basically fighting with one eye. And, suddenly, the win doesn’t even seem like the most important thing.

“I got the injury; it’s permanent,” Mousasi said. “Some things you can’t change. But I’d rather have taken the loss than get the eye injury. From an injury like this, sometimes, it’s a difficult way to come back. The loss, the next fight you can come back from the loss.

“Injuries are the worst. But every time you step in the cage, you risk your health. And that’s what I learned on this fight. It’s a dangerous sport and you have to be careful.”

Fact remains that Mousasi (43-6-2 MMA, 1-0 BMMA) officially beat Shlemenko (56-10 MMA, 12-4 BMMA). And that gave him a not-at-all-surprising opportunity to fight champ Rafael Carvalho (15-1 MMA, 6-0 BMMA) for the 185-pound belt at Bellator 200, which is set to take place on May 25, at The SSE Arena in London.

In order to take the middleweight crown, Mousasi will have to do something that no fighter has been capable of since 2011: Beating Brazil’s Carvalho in an MMA match.

“He’s a champion for a reason,” Mousasi said. “The last loss that he had was a long time ago. I know he’s confident going into the fight. He’s a southpaw. Like I said, a lot of fighters don’t get credit for what they’ve done. I know he’s a tough opponent. I feel like he wants to prove something. Obviously, fighting me, he can show that he’s the champion for a reason.

“It’s going to be a good fight. Obviously, I feel I’m the better fighter. I think everybody thinks that. If I didn’t feel like that, then I shouldn’t fight the guy. We’ll see how it goes. It’s a fight.”

Having often come into bouts off major statement wins which, as a bonus, didn’t leave him with any damage, Mousasi will concede that the feeling is a bit different this time around. It’s a good thing, then, that bouncing back is something he’s no stranger to accomplishing.

“I never had two losses in a row; I always come back strong after a loss,” Mousasi said. “I will come back stronger after this fight. Obviously, it wasn’t the best fight. I’m coming off an injury so, mentally – I’m not all the way confident, it’s not peak high. But I get my confidence because of my training, and I know what I can do. Once I lost to Uriah Hall, I came back stronger. A lot of times I lost, I came back stronger.

“I’m not that sensitive, what can I say? It’s fighting. I’ve been doing this for a long time. I know it’s not in my hands. The only thing I have in my control is that I train well, prepare well and step in the cage 100 percent. That is what increases my chances of winning. I will do that an once I go in there. I know it’s automatic pilot.”

After a less-than-ideal start, Mousasi is now looking forward to what could be a stellar future with a promotion that, so far, has given him no reasons to complain. That starts on May 25, with a meeting that not only may add yet another belt to a collection that includes DREAM and Strikeforce titles, but also present other opportunities.

“If I win the belt, the door opens for a light heavyweight fight, a superfight,” Mousasi said. “This fight is very important for me. With this fight, a lot of things, good things, will come.”

Mousasi clarifies: Although he’s talked about growing tired of the weight-cutting process in the past, the goal, for now, is still to focus on his current 185-pound division. But, with five fights left on his current Bellator contract, he’s also open to the offers that may come his way – including a particularly tempting one.

“If I go to light heavyweight, I want to fight for the belt,” Mousasi said.

For more on Bellator 200, check out the MMA Rumors section of the site.