After a hard-fought victory over Carlos Prates at UFC Kansas City on Saturday night, which included a late onslaught by his opponent, Ian Machado Garry proclaimed himself the back-up fighter for Muhammad vs. Maddalena at UFC 315 next month.
For those keeping track, that’s the welterweight title fight that headlines the Pay-Per-View card in Montreal. And no, it’s not just wishful thinking on the part of Ireland’s Garry, who might have already had a title shot had he not been defeated on the scorecards by Shavkat Rakhmonov at UFC 310 back in December, in what was, to be fair, a short-notice fight.
“It’s official. Yeah,” UFC President and CEO Dana White said during Saturday’s UFC Kansas City post-fight press conference, asked about Garry serving as the backup.
Garry earned a five-round unanimous decision at the T-Mobile Center on Saturday, and looked incredibly strong through the first three and a half rounds. He was winning the fight handedly on the feet during that stretch, while becoming the first man to take Carlos Prates down in the UFC. White had plenty of praise for the welterweight star, ranked #7 in the weight class.
“He definitely gets in there and controls everything. The pace, what he wants to do, when he wants to do it,” observed White. “Even against a guy, the question was tonight, would Prates go in there and put unbelievable pressure on him, stay in his face? Then we were wondering, would Ian take him down, hold him down? So those were all the, all the questions we had too were answered.”
“This is one of those fights that, on paper, the kid’s [Prates] 31 years old, he’s got a great record. And it’s not like tonight, like Ian went out there and did some MMA sh*t that this kid isn’t ready for yet or whatever. It was a stand-up fight, and he controlled the pace, he controlled everything, he did what he wanted to do when he wanted to do it. But the great thing was in the last round, Prates was obviously trying to finish the fight.”
Ian Machado Garry improved to 16-1 with the win; Rakhmonov remains the lone blemish on his record. But the Kazakh is injured, hence Maddalena earning the next title shot. And while Sean Brady sits in the pole position at welterweight, it seems Garry has surpassed him, at least in terms of the backup role. And at least in the eyes of Dana White and the UFC.
