At this point Garry seems to have beef with half the people in Las Vegas, and a bunch of them will be on stage with him at the UFC 296 presser.
Which Ian Garry are we going to see coming into Las Vegas this weekend for UFC 296?
That’s a question we’ve been wondering ever since the brash young prospect received a storm of criticism from fighters and fans. A number of training partners both past and present shared negative stories about “The Future,” and then Sean Strickland jumped in and accused Garry’s wife of being the mastermind behind his many pre-fight antics.
A seemingly shook Garry recently said he was concerned for his family’s safety coming into his December 16th fight with Vicente Luque. There was none of that in a promo video he just released directly addressing the haters.
There will always be Haters…#Undefeated pic.twitter.com/CpfAQuT686
— “The Future” Ian Machado Garry (@iangarryMMA) December 12, 2023
UFC 296 will feature a full-on open press conference with all the fighters on stage, and while Garry has thrived at those in the past, he could get ganged up on at this one. His opponent Vicente Luque may not be much of a talker, but Colby Covington has jumped in on the Garry s— talk. Leon Edwards is there. Ian could get drowned out.
Dan Hardy, a man who knows more than a little about the mental warfare aspect of MMA, discussed the situation on Submission Radio.
“I think he needs to be very, very cautious about how he approaches this press conference,” Hardy said. “He has the potential to turn everybody on the stage against him, you know, of course you’ve got Colby there who’s going to get stuck in straight away. I don’t think Leon will, Leon’s too classy for that. But if someone comes and starts throwing dirt his direction, then Leon of course will stand his ground.”
“Ian Garry needs to choose his battles. This is again where, you know, the political spin that’s probably kind of being weaved into his mind before he steps onto the stage is going to determine whether he’s got control of the situation or not.”
“You read the messages that were sent to Sean Strickland,” Hardy added. “And I don’t know about you guys but I didn’t read them in Ian Garry’s voice. I don’t know how much he speaks for himself at the moment, even when he’s sitting on the stage with the mic in his own hand, I still feel like a lot of the words are being put in his head.”
“What I would like to see is him sit on the stage and be himself and speak from the heart and tell people where he’s at and what’s actually going on, but I don’t know if we’ll get that just yet.”