Ian Machado Garry looks to live vicariously through his previously scheduled opponent next month.
Garry was slated to face Joaquin Buckley in the main event of UFC Tampa on Dec. 14, but after welterweight champion Belal Muhammad was forced out of the UFC 310 main event with an injury, Garry now steps in to face Shavkat Rakhmonov in a five-round co-main event on the Dec. 7 pay-per-view card in Las Vegas. In a somewhat surprising move, the UFC booked Buckley against former interim champ Colby Covington to cap off the promotion’s return to “The Sunshine State.”
Garry is now backing Buckley to not only beat Covington, but knock him out.
“Joaquin Buckley: I’m behind you 100 percent of the way,” Garry said on Instagram. “Go out and put that man to sleep, please and thank you. Do it for me, because he’s not able to do it against me.”
After Garry was booked, he alleged both Covington and former champ Kamaru Usman declined matchups with him. “The Future” has been calling out Covington for well over a year, and the undefeated Garry now believes Covington returning to face Buckley is proof “Chaos” wanted nothing to do with fighting him.
“This just shows [he’s] been ducking me for seven, eight months,” Garry said. “I signed for the baddest man in the division and this guy comes out of the f*cking shadows. He’s a p*ssy. He’s a bitch. And one day, I’ll get my hands on him.”
