Ian Garry scoffs Usman’s potential title shot, “He’s f–king irrelevant”
UFC Qatar’s co headliner Ian Machado Garry has shown clear disdain with the talks of Islam Makhachev facing former champion Kamaru Usman, instead of the up and coming fighters at welterweight.
Makhachev and Usman, alongside Khabib and their manager have been hyping up “The Nigerian Nightmare” as the next title defense for Islam, despite Usman only winning one fight in the last four years. They believe it does not rid of Kamaru’s legacy of five title defenses and record high 15 fight win streak in the division.
However giving #8 ranked Usman the title fight does not make sense for the fighters ranked #2 to #7, which enrages #6 ranked Ian Machado Garry. Garry will be facing #2 ranked Belal Muhammad at UFC Qatar with the mindset of claiming the title shot with a win.
“Khabib and his team are very smart, and they are very intelligent at choosing fights and making interesting matchups,” Garry highlighted in his interview with TNT Sports. “Kamaru Usman is f–king irrelevant in the welterweight division right now. And excuse my language, but that’s a fact. He’s a has been. And yes, at one point in time, he was arguably the greatest welterweight of all time. He’s not close now.”
“I think Khabib and that whole fight team, they know how to spin the wording to build a fight. But there’s no interest, no fan wants to see that fight. They wanna see him versus me. They wanna see him versus Shavkat [Rakhmonov]. They wanna see Islam versus Prates and Morales. They wanna see the new generation of this welterweight division.”
“When you’ve got someone who’s pushing 40 years of age and is nearly No. 10 in the world? He’s irrelevant,” Garry critiqued. “So I think that’s just Islam trying to get that 17th consecutive win against an easy opponent, someone who was at one point in time somebody but now is just trying to maintain relevance. So I don’t wanna say anything disrespectful to Islam and his team, but I think it’s a cop out.”
“The champion should face the No. 1 challenger. And Kamaru Usman isn’t close to that.”
Garry hopes to remove all doubt that he is next in line, when he defeats former champion Belal Muhammad on Saturday November 22nd.
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