Massive matchup? Ian Machado Garry: ‘I’ve beaten more Top 15 competitors’ than ‘joker’ Colby Covington

Ian Machado Garry wants to show that Colby Covington is old news.

The brash Irish star’s winning ways continued at UFC 298 this past weekend (Feb. 17, 2024). Tasked with a previously aligned opponent, Geoff Neal, Garry outpointed his foe en route to a hard-fought split decision win, the first of his undefeated 14-fight career.

Garry, 26, hasn’t made too many friends in mixed martial arts (MMA) as of late, and one of those is, unsurprisingly, former interim Welterweight champion, Covington. After Covington’s recent loss to current champion, Leon Edwards, and Garry’s latest win, a fight between the two seems like a logical option. From each side of the fence, they’ve expressed interest and continue to.

“I know for a fact that it’s a massive matchup,” Garry said on The MMA Hour (h/t MiddleEasy). “When you think about it when you think about where his ranking is now, like I said earlier on, I’ve beaten more Top 15 competitors than Colby Covington has. His biggest claim to fame is ‘I’ve fought three for three world titles, and I’ve lost all of them.’

“So, I believe Colby still has a lot of respect for the fans,” he continued. “He’s still a massive matchup. He has a lot of followers. He’s a very good athlete. He pushes the pace and he’s got great wrestling, but he’s not a 10th of the athlete that I am. He doesn’t have the technique that I have. He doesn’t have the mindset that I have. I mean, the guy’s a joker, a clown, he was gonna get cut by the UFC until he put on this fake persona that everybody knows about and is aware about. He’s a pantomime.”

Garry has been significantly more active than “Chaos” in recent years. Covington has fought only once a year since 2019. His last win was a unanimous decision over Jorge Masvidal at UFC 272 in March 2022 — a span that has seen Garry collect six wins.

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