Following his win over Michael ‘Venom’ Page this past Saturday at UFC 300, Ian Machado Garry called out Shavkat Rakhmonov who took to social media to remind the Irishman of their previous sparring sessions.
Ian Machado Garry continued his unbeaten streak at UFC 300 this past weekend, slightly edging in a three-round fight against Michael ‘Venom’ Page.
Although the fight didn’t particularly live up to expectations, ‘The Future’ broke the record for the longest win streak for an Irish fighter in the promotion, overtaking his idol, Conor McGregor.
Ian Machado Garry and Shavkat Rakhmonov trained together at Kill Cliff in Florida
The 26-year-old was somewhat of a Nomad when it came to training before he found his current home Chute Box, in Brazil.
Prior to that, the Irishman trained at the likes of Team Renegade, SBG, and the gym in question, Kill Cliff. During his time training under the tutelage of Henri Hooft, Machado Garry, and Shavkat Rakhmonov shared the mats in Florida, helping each other prepare for their respective UFC fights.
Following his win over Page, ‘The Future’ called out the real ‘Nomad’, stating that he wants to be the first one to hand the Kazakh a loss.
With the callout, Rakhmonov responded on X, saying: “Looks like Ian forgot what happened during those training sessions. I don’t mind reminding him in the future.”
‘The Nomad’ last fought at UFC 296 last December, continuing his unbeaten record of finishes, submitting Stephen Thompson in round two.
Ian Machado Garry responds to Shavkat Rakhmonov’s sparring revelation
Since Rakhmonov’s sparring revelation, Machado Garry has come out and disputed his statement, but has continued to try and remain respectful of his former teammate.
“I did see them (his comments) and I don’t know what he’s talking about. There was one, there was one (sparring session) I remember. We were tippy-tapping, we had a fight on the same night (as each other),” Machado Garry said on The MMA Hour.
The two welterweights both competed on UFC 285 together, earlier last year, and in preparation for their fights, they trained together.
“It was when he fought Geoff Neal and I fought Kenan Song and Henri Hooft came over to me and goes, ‘I understand you two are both competitors, I understand you both have a fight, both of you are on the same team, go light. I want you to just touch each other keep active and give each other good looks’.
“We sat down and we were playing around, we were moving each other being good training partners and I threw a right body kick and he caught it, stepped back and he looked at me and he went boom, to the ribs. I was like ‘You f****** dirty c***’, he took the wind out of my ribs. I was like ‘Ah, I’m gonna get you back’,” the Irishman revealed.
Although things sound like they got fierce, the 26-year-old claims that it was all playful. As well as that, ‘The Future’ admitted that during their training together, he had a clear striking advantage, whereas Shavkat dominated him in grappling.
“I know for a fact, if this fights on the feet, I’m the one with the advantage. When it comes to grappling, he absolutely had the grappling advantage over me when we trained, he was a far superior grappler,” Machado Garry admitted.
Since then, Machado Garry’s work at Chute Box has been heavily grappling-focused, and he has been training with the likes of Charles Oliveira and Demien Maia, making the potential fight between him and Rakhmonov extremely intriguing.
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