In the lead up to his scheduled fight with Joaquin Buckley at UFC Tampa, Ian Machado Garry was very vocal about some of the other top contenders in the welterweight division. The #7-ranked competitor specifically called out the likes of Colby Covington and Kamaru Usman for turning down fights with him which led him to accepting a fight against someone ranked lower than him.
This didn’t end up playing out as Garry instead received the call to step into the co-main event of UFC 310 to face Shavkat Rakhmonov in a title eliminator. When Covington took his place to take on Buckley in the final UFC event of 2024, this only provided the Irishman with even more fuel.
Following his comments, Usman responded during an episode of his Pound 4 Pound Podcast alongside Henry Cejudo. The former welterweight champion shared DMs that Garry had sent him during his title reign to show respect and admiration to “The Nigerian Nightmare”.
Kamaru Usman reveals a DM Ian Machado Garry sent him in April 2021, which read:
“It’s a pleasure to watch what you do in that cage. Nothing but respect.”
— Home of Fight (@Home_of_Fight) December 13, 2024
Kamaru Usman reveals a DM Ian Machado Garry sent him in April 2021, which read:
Garry gave his thoughts on Usman revealing these messages during a recent interview with Spaceport Sweden. He says that at the time, he did go out of his way to praise the best welterweight in the world. However, his opinion of Usman has since changed now that he has become a competitor of his at 170-pounds.
The 27-year old doesn’t take back what he once said but did state that he no longer has that same level of respect for Usman.
”I had a lot of respect for him, until he turned me down. That’s a fact. He turned the fight with me down and that’s it. I had a lot of respect for him. I had a lot of respect for him and his career and everything that he did as the champion. And when I was a young kid watching the sport and I was an amateur and I’m watching him fight Gilbert Burns for the world title during COVID and I’m like ‘f**k, this guy’s one of the best we’ve seen’. That was the opinion the world had of him at that point. When that same guy turns down a fight against you, it changes the way you think about him. So I had respect for Kamaru, might be still a little bit, but not much after you turned me down, not much. And I don’t care what his excuses are. I don’t care what his excuses are. You put, you turn down the fight. In my mind, you’re a b***h.”