Whilst 16-1 welterweight contender Sean Brady has a tough fight ahead of him, that hasn’t stopped him from plotting out his ‘Future’ path to the top.
Only a few weeks after UFC welterweight champion Leon Edwards puts his title on the line against Belal Muhammad, two of the division’s top fighters are set to battle it out at the Apex.
Sean Brady returns to action versus Gilbert Burns in September
31-year-old welterweight contender Sean Brady finally returns to action on September 7 for his first outing of 2024; he takes on former welterweight title challenger Gilbert Burns at the UFC Apex.
Burns is staring down the barrel of a third consecutive loss in the octagon, having dropped a unanimous decision to Belal Muhammad back at UFC 288 before suffering a last-minute KO against Jack Della Maddalena earlier this year.
Brady himself bounced back from his own loss to Muhammad with an impressive third-round submission victory over Kelvin Gastelum last December – now, as he looks to retain his place in the win column, Brady is taking aim at one of the division’s top prospects.
Sean Brady calls out Ian Machado Garry after ‘disappointing’ show at UFC 303
Even ahead of his highly anticipated clash with Burns at UFC Vegas 97 in September, Brady is already plotting out his path back into welterweight title contention; and that starts with ‘The Future’.
Speaking to veteran MMA journalist Luke Thomas via his official YouTube channel, Brady was asked what he thought of the performance of one Ian Machado Garry at UFC 303 – and it’s safe to say that the 16-1 contender wasn’t enthralled by the Irishman’s skillset.
“To be completely honest, not impressed – not impressed with Ian, not impressed with MVP either,” lamented Brady, who sits just place below Garry in the official welterweight rankings, and five above Michael ‘Venom’ Page.
“Ian’s going on talking about he wants Shavkat [next], he wants this, he wants that – I thought he barely scraped through that fight, it could have been a draw in my book.
“I really didn’t see where you thought he did an amazing job,” he explained, noting that he was particularly disappointed with the fact that even with the ground control time, body lock, and one of the best submission artists in the world in his corner, Garry still couldn’t get the finish.
“Ian got on his back, but he couldn’t do anything with it… Even in the first round, he had the body triangle and almost a fully locked in rear naked choke, you have Demian Maia in your corner, and you [still] can’t finish MVP?
“Even his striking, he got cracked on the feet and he wanted no more part of it, he was saying he was going to knock out MVP in the first round and he barely landed a punch.
“He’s got a lot of work to do,” Brady shared, before calling out Garry for a fight at the back end of the year, provided he makes a statement against Gilbert Burns in September.
“And I hope – obviously not looking past Gilbert – but [after] I beat Gilbert, Ian said he wants to fight again in December; I get to turn that right back around and me and him get to finally do it.”
Interestingly, Brady also revealed that there were conversations around him being the one to face Garry at the recent UFC PPV – however, the promotion opted instead to go with Page, despite both fighters reportedly agreeing to the fight.
“I’ve literally been hitting up my manager since April like ‘When am I fighting’ – he manages me and Ian, I’m texting him every day like ‘Colby isn’t going to fight this mother****, I want this fight’.
“And then eight weeks before the fight, he calls me and is like ‘Hey, Colby’s out’, and I was like ‘I’m in, make it happen’… Unfortunately, the UFC didn’t want it- Ian said yeah, but then the UFC didn’t want it; so, I’ve been trying to chase down a lot of these guys for a while now.
“But we’ve got Gilbert, and we’ve got five-rounds – it’s going to be a great test for me and a great test for him too.”
Sean Brady vs Gilbert Burns goes down live from the UFC Apex on Saturday, September 7.