Neil Magny could perhaps be forgiven for twisting the knife in Ian Machado Garry’s withdrawal from this weekend’s UFC 296 fight card.
The UFC welterweight veteran, who lost a comprehensive decision to the Irishman back in August in a fight which was dominated by Garry’s protestations about a comment made by Magny in the lead-up in which he intimated that he would “give him a whooping that you’d give your son.”
Garry seized on this for the rest of fight week and, when in the cage, frequently flipped the middle finger at his opponent en route to a lopsided victory. But commenting on Garry’s removal from the card this weekend on the advice of UFC doctors after he contracted pneumonia, Magny admitted some fault in his comments which he says were vastly taken out of context.
“I’m fortunate now that like the majority of that stuff is behind me,” Magny told MiddleEasy. “That didn’t affect me too drastically when it comes to my family life and that kind of thing. But, it’s unfortunate to see someone’s personal life be drug up the way his life has been drug up and all the stuff that he has to go through currently. I wouldn’t wish that on anybody, especially when you consider the entire family dynamic and all the people are involved in there.
“If I’m being honest, it’s unfortunate,” Magny added of his rivalry with Garry and the media frenzy which ensued. “Having gone through what I got gone through based off of some of the statements and antics that Ian Garry said during fight week, it definitely caused some personal turbulence in my life, so to speak.
“But at the end of the day, I have to take accountability for the things that left my mouth and take accountability for the words that left my mouth. I definitely made statements that he was able to spin and play out in a different way than what I have intended to.
“At the end of the day, that’s on me. I was the one who made those statements, made those statements publicly. How someone else perceived them or spun them — that’s out of my control, but I kind of gave him that opportunity to be able to do so. I have to own that fact and live with it, so to speak.”
