This Saturday at UFC 310, Ian Machado Garry and Shavkat Rakhmonov broke the UFC record for the highest combined record between opponents when they fought for welterweight number one contendership.
Shavkat Rakhmonov was originally scheduled to fight for the undisputed welterweight title against Belal Muhammad, but after breaking his toe and subsequently suffering a bone infection, Muhammad withdrew.
With that, fellow undefeated phenom, Ian Machado Garry, threw his name in the hat to take on his former training partner, Rakhmonov, to compete for number one contendership.
Dana White reacts to the fight between Ian Machado Garry and Shavkat Rakhmonov
Coming into the fight, the anticipation had become extremely palpable between the two 170lbers, despite them having remained respectful from the start.
Rakhmonov began UFC 310 fight week by claiming that he used to submit Machado Garry during training sessions at Kill Cliff, which the Irishman admitted was true.
Despite that, ‘The Future’ and ‘The Nomad’ went on to have an extremely fiery face-off at the ceremonial weigh-ins a day prior to their fight, which Garry ended by claiming he was going to finish the Kazakh.
The fight played out the way a large majority of the fanbase expected it to, as Rakhmonov seemingly had a big grappling advantage over Machado Garry, despite Garry’s continuous work with the likes of Charles Oliveira at Chute Box in Brazil.
However, the 27-year-old impressed the fans with his defensive wrestling and grappling as Rakhmonov only landed two of 10 takedown attempts, and at one point, Machado Garry even came extremely close to securing himself a rear-naked-choke win.
‘The Nomad’ went on to pick up the unanimous decision win, with all three judges giving him the extremely close 48-47 victory.
UFC CEO, Dana White, admitted that sometimes fights don’t play out the way you expect them to, however on this occasion, because of the stakes, he wasn’t too surprised with how it played out.
“15-0 and 18-0, what that means is you have two really great fighters with a lot at stake, there’s a title (shot) on the line and you saw a lot of great things from both guys during that fight,” White admitted at the post fight press conference.
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Ian Machado Garry disputes his decision loss to Shavkat Rakhmonov
Although the UFC boss was complimentary of both fighters and happy with both of their performances, the Irishman was a bit more critical.
Following the first loss of his career, Machado Garry admitted that he doesn’t feel like he lost the fight and has questioned the judges scorecards.
“I’m humble in victory and in defeat and always have been, and I do not feel like I lost today, my hand might not have been raised but I came out and I fought a giant, I came out and I fought the boogeyman and I showed that he’s f*cking human,” Garry began to explain in his post fight press conference.
“I went out there on three weeks notice and I saved this event, I saved this card against the scariest man in the division and I went out there and I stopped almost everything… I showed that I can hang with the single best in the division and I proved tonight that I can absolutely be a champion.
“He won by opinion, and that’s ok, I can live with that and I’m very happy with my performance tonight,” the Irishman continued.
The co-main event isn’t the only fight that was deemed controversially judged on the scorecards as the heavyweight fight between Ciryl Gane and Alexander Volkov resulted in Dana White having a conversation with the commissioners.
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