Kamaru Usman has been to the top of the mountain at 170-pounds.
The former champion, who has dropped each of his past three fights in the cage (Leon Edwards x2, Khamzat Chimaev), was one of the names speculated to face the undefeated Shavkat Rakhmonov at next month’s UFC 310 card in Las Vegas after reigning welterweight titleholder Belal Muhammad was forced to withdraw from a scheduled title defence opposite Rakhmonov after sustaining a foot injury in preparation.
Instead, it was confirmed late last week that the unbeaten Irishman Ian Machado Garry will instead fight his former training partner Rakhmonov in what is a number one contender fight, and while Usman ultimately declared that he would be unable to take on the Kazakh finisher on such short notice, he has focused his attention on the new, hastily-arranged fight.
“I like the matchup, but we have a tendency to get excited for these Ian Garry matchups, and they don’t turn out the way we think,” he said on the Pound 4 Pound podcast alongside Henry Cejudo, as noted by MMA Junkie.
“I’m being honest. Did I not say the same thing about the Michael ‘Venom’ Page fight? That’s not a knock. It’s just the way that Ian Garry likes to fight. Ian Garry is a guy that loves space. He loves to make it look pretty. He loves to run off his combinations and move, move, move.
“Make it look pretty to where you have a guy like Shavkat, who is kind of a seek and destroy type of guy. He wants to get into the action. So, I like the matchup, of course. … I think it’s a good fight. Shavkat is going to come forward. He’s going to try to seek and destroy as he always does, and Ian Garry is going to move around to create the space, to try to find the good strikes. So, it’s a good fight on paper. I don’t know how it’s going to look on fight night.”
The two combatants are very familiar with one another, having trained together on the mats at Florida’s Kill Cliff FC before Garry ultimately settled in Brazil at the famed Chute Boxe academy.
“It’s an intriguing fight because there’s a little bit of backstory,” Usman explained. “So, I think it’s going to make for a little bit more animosity as we get closer to the fight, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s not the most electrifying fight that we’ve ever seen like we’re expecting.”
