The fight between the UFC 292 welterweights started during fight week after Garry latched on to some questionable smack talk from Magny.
Despite only coming together just a week and a half before UFC 292, the fight between Ian Machado Garry and Neil Magny become personal extremely fast.
Garry picked apart Magny with leg kicks and battered his opponent en route to a dominant 30–26, 30–26, 30–24 unanimous decision win. As the fight went on, “The Future” repeatedly threw a middle finger up at Magny.
“I put him on his arse twice in a row with the first two kicks of the fight,” Garry exclaimed during the UFC 292 post-fight press conference. “The first two exchanges he went on his ass and I was like ‘Oh my goodness, this is gonna be a long night for you.’ That guy’s going home in a wheelchair and I f—in’ said it: tonight he is being walked home by someone in a wheelchair and he’s gonna go home and he’s gonna sit and reflect on everything he’s ever f—ing done in life.”
“I whooped his ass tonight and he better sit there and think ‘F—, I need to change my life.’”
The source of animosity between the two fighters? An odd bit of trash talk from Magny during fight week where he suggested he’d whoop Garry to teach him about life, similar to what he does with his kids. That didn’t sit well with Ian, who’s a new parent.
“Magny’s a scumbag and I’m glad I f—ing went out and gave him a hiding because the s— he said at that press conference to you guys,” Garry said. “I don’t know how none of you picked up on that right away, the first second I heard that, I was like, ‘What did he just say?’ I paused it, ‘Sorry, sorry, sorry, I must have misunderstood that. I watched it again and I was like, ‘You cannot say something like that and get away with that.’”
“Look, my baby is sat over in the corner over there. I know, for my life, I was a pest as a kid. Look at me, I’m the exact type of person that’s going to cause trouble. I got f—ing whacked with a wooden spoon, that doesn’t mean I go and f—ing do it to him. No, you break the cycle.”
“If you want to be better and you want to change the world, don’t do what you don’t want done to you,” he continued. “Break the f—ing cycle. Be a better human, be a better man, and let’s change the f—ing world. And don’t ever, ever, ever touch a f—ing kid. That’s my attitude and I don’t think there’s anyone in this room that’s going to f—ing disagree with me. And if you do, come talk to me.”
Beating your child is not cool to brag about at a press conference pic.twitter.com/r7uM4u79iq
— “The Future” Ian Machado Garry (@iangarryMMA) August 17, 2023
Garry later admitted that there was a certain amount of mental warfare he applied when taking Magny’s comments and turning them into a pre-fight conversation point.
“Magny gave me gold, it’s like someone handing you gold and saying ‘Don’t drop it,’” Garry said. “Obviously not, I’m gonna use this. You can’t sit there and say something so f—ing stupid on air on live TV and not get absolutely slated for it. And that was my goal. I didn’t want him to have one word spoken at the press conference because he didn’t deserve it.
“And did you see the emotion? Go back and watch the press conference. When Dana was like ‘We’re gonna wrap it up’ and Magny was f—ing livid. You could see it in his body and soul that he was pissed. I got in that man’s head and I pissed him off. I made him stressed, I made him angry, and don’t think for a second when he went home that night that he was livid. When he weighed in and I seen him there, that he was livid. And every time I looked at him and smilled, he was like ‘I’m gonna break that kid’s face.’”
“And what happened? He got his f—ing ass handed to him. Justice is amazing.”