Daniel Cormier had a cageside seat for UFC 310 and, apparently, the inside scoop on the co-main event.
According to Cormier, who was working the commentary desk for Saturday’s UFC event at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, Rakhmonov might have been far from 100 percent heading into a pivotal welterweight clash with Ian Machado Garry. Rakhmonov defeated Garry by unanimous decision, but Garry gave the unbeaten fighter the toughest test of his career so far.
In a UFC 310 reaction video, Cormier claims he was told that Rakhmonov was competing with a serious knee injury.
“If I’m Belal Muhammad, I’m actually kind of happy watching this fight tonight because Shavkat Rakhmonov did not look like himself even though I learned after that he had an injury,” Cormier said. “I think he might have tore his MCL going into the fight. Granted, with a torn ligament in your knee you’re not going to look like the killer that you looked like in fights prior.”
MMA Fighting’s Mike Heck reached out to Rakhmonov’s management, who told him that Rakhmonov was “dealing with something,” though no specifics were given. Rakhmonov is expected to undergo an MRI this week.
Cormier brought up Muhammad because the welterweight champion was originally scheduled to defend against Rakhmonov in Saturday’s main event before being forced to withdraw due to a bone infection in his foot. After Rakhmonov’s win, he called for Muhammad to enter the cage and the two engaged in a respectful faceoff.
If there’s any truth to Cormier’s claim, it would help to explain why Rakhmonov was unable to assert himself with his wrestling as he has against several of his past opponents. Garry showed excellent takedown defense throughout the fight and refused to let Rakhmonov muscle him against the fence. In the fifth round, Garry actually got the better of Rakhmonov on the ground and threatened with a rear-naked choke.
However, Rakhmonov did enough to earn 48-47 scores across the board.
“It was a good fight,” Cormier said. “It picked up late. Machado Garry will look back on this and be very disappointed at the way that he managed Round 1 and 2 because in Round 1 and 2, not much happened at all, but the few things that did happen was enough to give Shavkat those rounds. Shavkat did a better job in Round 4 getting takedowns, but in Round 5, Machado Garry was pressing, making him work, and almost got a submission. That was exciting.
“When you get guys that know each other really well, there’s a danger that the fight could turn into something that you kind of expect if you know mixed martial arts, where it’s almost like a chess match and it’s not as fun. That’s kind of what we got with these two tonight.”
