Ian Machado Garry on getting knocked down at UFC 285: ‘I was a f****** idiot, that’s what happened’
Ian Machado Garry is happy with his performance at UFC 285, save one nearly catastrophic slip up.
At UFC 285, Garry fought Kenan Song in a preliminary bout, where the undefeated Irish prospect had arguably the biggest scare of his young career. Near the end of the first round, Song dropped Garry with a nasty left hook that nearly led Garry’s first career defeat. Speaking with Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour, Garry acknowledged that he was in a bad way and that it was all his own doing.
“I was a f****** idiot, that’s what happened,” Garry said. “I said to myself — if you even watch the corner, I went back and told my corner exactly what happened. I said, ‘My fault. I f***** up.’ I did a shot that I knew would put me in danger, and I don’t know why I did it.
“I went jab to the body and then I went jab high, and every time I went high, he was bringing his elbows up. He didn’t want any damage on his face... So I ripped the body with the right and I was like, ‘F***, I could sit him down if I go for a left liver shot.’ And then I thought, ‘Don’t do that because you’ll leave yourself open for a big power shot,’ and then I f****** went and did it anyway!
“So it’s my fault for getting a bit greedy. I have no one else to blame but myself. And I knew it before I threw the shot.”
Ultimately, Garry was able to survive to the end of the round, regroup, and then take over the fight, winning by third-round TKO. The win is the eleventh of Garry’s career and his fourth in the UFC, and while he obviously isn’t happy about getting caught in the first round, the former Cage Warriors welterweight champion does say it showed he can handle adversity and still work through.
“It was a great shot,” Garry said. “When you look at the slo-mo of it, it was perfect. So I made a mistake, he capitalized, and I recovered well. So if anything, it just shows that not only do I talk the talk and walk the work, if something goes wrong and adversity needs to be overcome, I overcome it and pass with flying colors. Because in round two and round three, I f****** lit him up. And even in round one, I dominated that entire fight from start to finish, except for that one little shot that led to him having success. Other than the mistake that I made, he didn’t have success.”
25-years-old, Irish, and with seven stoppage wins on his resume, Garry is viewed by some as the successor the Conor McGregor, and Garry certainly hopes the prove that true in time. In fact, Garry wants to expedite this process by returning to action almost immediately. After his win over Song, Garry used his post-fight interview to call for a spot on the upcoming UFC 287 card that’s set to take place in Miami, and “The Future” is sticking to that.
“I’d love to fight April 8,” Garry said. “Obviously I don’t know if the UFC will be able to turn around that much. I spoke to Sean Shelby before I fought, told him I wanted to go in there and finish this fight and I’m not going to get injured. He said ‘We’ll see what we can do. Obviously, let’s take March 4 and see how you get on.’ Because you never know with a fight. It’s a fight at the end of the day, you could break your hand with one shot. So when I got on the mic afterwards it was like, ‘Hey Sean, Dana, Hunter, let’s make this happen.’ I live half and hour from where we’re fighting. To turn around in five weeks and have two performances, two finishes back-to-back, after being away from the sport to take time out to be a dad and be there for my wife, it’s a nice way to get the ball rolling again and show the MMA world that I’m back, and that I’m here to stay.”
And as for an opponent, Garry isn’t too picky. There are a few names he’s looked at that Garry says could make sense, but ultimately, he’s down to fight anyone who is also willing to step in on a month’s notice.
“I wanted to fight Bryan Barberena because I called him out, but he took the short-notice fight against Gunnar Nelson,” Garry said. “There’s people I’m looking at. I’m seeing Michael Moraes, he’s an undefeated 14-0, I’ve seen him comment eye emojis on my posts. I’m game for that. And there’s other people, like Alex Morono. He’s got a four-fight win streak. It would be nice to go in and take on someone of his caliber. I know I’ve seen people online tag me and Nico Price. At the end of the day, I don’t really give a f***. There’s a lot of options, there’s a lot of people that offer different skill sets, different stylistic matchups, and that’s on Sean Shelby and the UFC to be like, we want to give you this guy and see if he’s going to test you. At the end of the day, a lot of people will [chat] online and they don’t sign the contracts. If Sean Shelby sends me a contract with anybody’s name on it, I’ll sign it, I’ll send it off, and I’ll fight April 8. That’s my goal. I don’t see why I can’t make that happen.”
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