Michael Page doesn’t see championship potential in Ian Machado Garry.
Garry (15-0 MMA, 8-0 UFC) remained unbeaten when he edged out Page last month at UFC 303. He was able to outgrapple “MVP” and land a pivotal takedown late in Round 3 to secure the win.
Garry expressed interest in facing Shavkat Rakhmonov next, but Page (22-3 MMA, 1-1 UFC) doesn’t see him winning that fight – or being the one to dethrone welterweight champion Leon Edwards.
“Not at all, no,” Page said on The MMA Hour. “Because if that’s the game you’re going to go when you get a decent striker, then Leon is going to kill you anyway, then Shavkat is going to kill you anyway. There’s a few guys in there that I just don’t see him surpassing. He went a bit more tactical and even in some of the areas, he didn’t feel massively strong. I’m not even trying to be disrespectful to him because again, he’s done his job, he was smart about how he kind of went by it.
“But for me, regardless, this game for me is about combat. It’s about fighting. Not about stealing wins. Even like I said, that last round, I didn’t necessarily need to stand up or need to let him stand up. I could’ve stayed there and just dragged it out and potentially got a better score in the third round and maybe that would’ve swayed it, but that’s not the game I’m in. I’m in a combat game. Like, I want to cause damage, I want to hurt people.”
So what’s Garry’s ceiling in Page’s opinion? A perennial welterweight contender.
“I don’t see him progressing to the top,” Page said. “I think he’s talented. I think he’ll always be around there – top 10, top five – and then he’ll keep losing out to certain people. But he is still talented, and obviously he’s got a loads of time to progress and get better anyway.”
