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Ian Machado Garry is different
When you speak to a lot of fighters, it’s easy to forget that they are more than just fighters and that they are pro athletes, too. It’s because often fighters actually forget they are pro athletes. They think of themselves as fighters, warriors, soldiers, first and foremost, maybe — in some cases — as martial artists, too. But many don’t acknowledge the professional side of their sport. And why would they? The UFC, and the MMA industry that follows it, have worked hard to make fighters believe they are second billing to whatever letters are written on the inside of the cage.
The UFC tells fighters they will handle the promotion. The UFC tells fighters “Jump!” and the fighters say “How high?” The worst thing that could happen for the UFC is if every fighter woke up this morning, looked in the mirror and said “I’m a professional athlete and I deserve to be treated like one.” What comes next might be a fighters’ association, collective bargaining, 50-50 revenue splits, equity… Dana White’s nightmares come true.
However, not every fighter is stuck thinking of themselves like a gladiator in a pit or a Samurai honour bound to their Shogun; who will fight and die at the pleasure of their retainer. Some of these guys and girls actual see themselves as pros and, despite the promotion doing their best to deprive of them of the benefits reaped by other mainstream pro athletes, these few don’t just take their craft seriously, but also their brand. And, love him or hate him, Ian Machado Garry is one of those cats.
“I call it the ‘Blonde Bond’,” smiled Garry as he discussed the Sean Connery inspired suit he plans to wear at this weekend’s UFC 298; an event where he is due to fight Geoff ‘Handz of Steel’ Neal. “It’s super clean, super efficient, but I’m deadly and I’m ready to go to work type of vibes”
“And I think that, to me, when you dress for business you show up in a suit, you’re ready to perform. Sir Alex Ferguson made all the Manchester United players wear suits, he said this is a job, show up, dressed and ready for work. And I feel very similar to that. So for me, I’m just going to go in there, clean and know that I have a job to do and I’m not going to stop until the job gets done.”
Garry, who recently appeared in the NHL All-Stars Game program advertising a vegan protein product, is a student of mainstream sports and thinks big league stick and ball games are the examples he needs to follow if he seeks to transcend beyond the confines of a cage — much like his notorious countryman Conor McGregor once did.
“I am aware of all the mental strategies that other sports offer,” he said. “And I think it’s important that we look at other sports to evolve our sport. My entire social media platform, and everything that I do, is designed around Premier League footballers and the way they work because they are the most lucrative athletes on the planet. And the way they operate and the way they do their social media, and the way their clubs operate, is through such a high standard that you can’t not look at that and take from it all of the possible positives to add to this business.”
Garry talks like a Lebron or a Messi. And his dream is to become a name mentioned in the same breath of those megastars. However, the 26-year-old 13-0 fighter still has plenty to prove before he can claim being one of the biggest names in MMA, let alone mainstream sports.
Prospect doesn’t cut it anymore
Garry has enjoyed the reputation that comes along with being a young undefeated fighter who has set tongues wagging with performances on smaller shows and, thus far, against a gentle climb in opponent quality within the UFC.
He was listicle fodder for ‘Best fighters outside the UFC’ and ‘Best fighters on the European scene’ long before he signed with the UFC in the summer of 2021.
Since entering the Octagon he hasn’t put a foot wrong and advanced to listicles like ‘Best UFC prospects’. After his hot start under the big lights, Garry was given his first real tests in the shape of gatekeepers Daniel Rodriguez and Neil Magny. Despite their best efforts, Garry was able to pass them and open the doors onto the top ten rankings in the UFC’s welterweight division.
Entering his athletic prime, and positioned among the elites of his weight class, Garry knows being a ‘prospect’ isn’t good enough anymore.
“It is a change in the mind set when you do enter the UFC you have to prove you are of that level,” said Garry of his career trajectory to date. “When you become a hot prospect that everybody is watching, you have to back it up. Because the hype doesn’t get generated unless you put the performances in. Now, what we’ve been saying to everyone in the team is, that we are committing to a title run. Committing to going out there at every opportunity that I have and showing the world just how talented I am.”
Garry speaks of his title run like someone who genuinely believes there is no other possible outcome than him beating Neal, and whomever else is next, on route to hoisting a UFC title in the air, with his wife by his side and his child on his hip.
He talks as if this has already been written. Whether this is bravado, delusion or absolute confidence, only the man himself can answer. The conviction in his voice, certainly had me leaning towards the side of absolute confidence.
“I’ve never felt pressure in my life.”
When asked whether he felt his goals (and the expectations on him by onlookers) were adding pressure to his plate and whether that was a good thing or a bad thing, Garry paused.
“You said a word that doesn’t really resonate with me.”
“I’ve never really felt a pressure in my life,” he continued. “Every decision I’ve ever made has been super easy and super simple. From me quitting my job and college, to committing to being a UFC fighter when I hadn’t even done MMA. That was my goal. That was intention. That was what I wanted to do.
“Pressure isn’t something that I feel. For me it’s ease. Right now I am travelling the world with a nutritionist, so that wherever I go in the world, I’m getting the best nutrition that I possibly can. … So that I take that stress away from myself. I then have an elite strength and performance coach who is with me everyday and we train every single day, so we don’t have to do those big sessions where you kill yourself in the gym twice a week. I do half an hour, forty minutes with him every day, seven days a week, for optimal transformation, optimal output, optimal workload.
“So when I travel with these people around the world it’s because I know how good I am and how talented I am, but the hard work needs to be put in.”
As we spoke, I wondered whether Garry’s confidence, and proclamation that he was ‘pressure-proof’, was simply born out of the successes he has had so far and that whether that would all crumble away should he experience failure or misfortune.
I asked Garry about any adversity he’d faced in his career (or life in general), genuinely curious to know whether or not he would acknowledge any tough times and talk about them with as much zeal as he had for the good times.
Not Always Sunny in Garryland
Despite Garry giving a very sunny description of his current life, travels and achievements, the young fighter admitted to difficult times along the way. And those times haven’t been very private, either.
As his star has risen, Garry has had to deal with social media barbs from fellow fighters and headlines questioning his past.
In 2021 Garry was due to fight for the Cage Warriors welterweight title. However, ten days before that fight Garry was kicked out of his gym, Team KF Martial Arts. Team KF would release a statement claiming Garry was kicked out due to poor behaviour towards teammates and coaches, something they say he had been warned about on multiple occasions. Team KF’s statement said that Garry had become ‘uncoachable’ after he signed with a new manager.
Garry didn’t respond directly to those claims at the time. Years later Garry would claim that his removal from the team was due to his objection to a contract the gym wanted him to sign ahead of the title fight.
Garry won his Cage Warriors title and signed with the UFC a month later. More recently Garry was reportedly kicked out of Leon Edwards’s Team Renegade. Garry said he left that gym because Edwards’ coaches thought the current UFC welterweight champ would feel threatened with an up and comer in the division being under the same roof. Edwards vehemently denied those claims.
Even more recently Garry has been experienced social media abuse orchestrated by former UFC middleweight champion Sean Strickland.
When talking about these incidents, Garry let his guard down and revealed that some of these incidents had hurt him, deeply.
“As a young kid, to get kicked out of a gym, ten days before his world title fight, it was a massive shock to me,” said Garry of the Team KF affair. “It was people I thought that cared about me. People I thought had my back. People I thought wanted to be apart of me succeeding. That was a lot for a young kid to take and it was hurtful. It was upsetting. It was very difficult. It left me in a very sensitive spot.”
Garry said, to this day, that situation was one of the toughest things he’s ever had to deal with.
“I see people sharing a lot of hate that’s unnecessary. That’s not easy either. But you have to overcome it, learn from it and deal from it.”
“I had to deal with seeing that people aren’t always as they seemed,” he added. “That was one of the biggest mountains I’ve had to climb … and then I went out there and I did like I always will. I will show up and do me because I am never going to let anyone or anything stop me in my tracks.
“I showed up to that world title fight on my own. I had no one to corner me that week and the President of the organization said, ‘You have to find someone to be in your corner or I’m calling the fight.’ And I told him, ‘I don’t want anybody, I want to do this on my own. I want to know that I don’t need anybody, that I choose to have them.’
“So that was a huge part of adversity of my young career. And then, obviously, the recent attack and barrage of hate. It’s not easy. It’s not easy to deal with especially when I’m a young kid trying to live his life and follow his dreams. I see people sharing a lot of hate that’s unnecessary. That’s not easy either. But you have to overcome it, learn from it and deal from it.”
On Hate
Last year, on the heels of his win over Neil Magny, Garry became one of the most respected young talents in the UFC. However, his notoriety exploded after that due to online spats with Sean Strickland and the waves of MMA4Lifers who view Strickland as their champion.
Strickland’s attacks were scattershot, aimed at Garry and those around him. They emboldened and validated a community who also wanted to go after Garry’s relationships and family.
This period of Garry’s life was also one of his toughest. But he says it’s taught him a valuable lesson.
“Coming off the end of the massive barrage of hate and having sat down with my team and the people that talk to me and want to see me succeed, we’ve obviously learned from this,” he said. “We’ve obviously evolved from this.”
Garry said he and his team are now prepared for similar attacks. Part of that preparation has included turning off comments on Instagram, Garry’s main social media platform.
“I have an amazing following,” said Garry. “I have an amazing fanbase. No fan I’ve ever met in public or in the real world has ever said a bad thing to me. … So you have to understand this, the hate online is just a small minority of people, many from a specific fanbase that are quite harsh, hurtful and rude and it’s mainly off the back of Sean Strickland and we’ve seen recent people, like Jon Anik, say that the pain of the comments means that he doesn’t know how long he has left [in MMA].”
“And the hate, it’s always going to be there when you have success and that’s what we realized,” he continued. “The more I succeed the more people are going to hate, but we’ve learned in awesome ways. We’ve learned if you don’t sit at my table, then I don’t care for your opinion online. If you’re not part of my circle, part of my team, then I don’t care what you have to say. Turning the comments off was protecting the peace between me and my fanbase.”
Taylor Swift turned off her comments in 2019 because of hurtful comments and negative comments that affected the way she went about her days. So she turned them off because she doesn’t need that input in her life. That’s exactly what we’ve done.
Garry said part of the inspiration for turning off his comments came from international uberstar Taylor Swift. That would be an odd reference for most MMA fighters, but for Garry it’s just another indication that he’s looking beyond MMA history for the blueprint on how to be successful in life.
“If you’re a fan of mine and I’m doing my job and you’re coming out to see the work I’m doing, I don’t want you to see the hate, so I’ll block it out, I’ll protect the peace. I’ll shut the comments off and we’ve looked at someone like Taylor Swift.
“Taylor Swift turned off her comments in 2019 because of hurtful comments and negative comments that affected the way she went about her days. So she turned them off because she doesn’t need that input in her life. That’s exactly what we’ve done. I can turn off the hate and I can get rid of it and there’s no benefit for me or any of my fans to see it.”
On Love
Garry’s brush with hate was hurtful, but the Irishman wants to take only positives from the experience. He said the fallout from Strickland’s abuse was that he was able to see the true colours of those around him. According to him, that was an especially pleasing experience in his adopted home of Brazil and at the legendary Chute Boxe gym (where he is training for his fight with Geoff Neal0.
“One of the massive lessons that I’ve learned from all the hate that I received was that I found what I was looking for in a gym and that is people that care. Because during the hate and during all these attacks, people showed their true colours and the people in Brazil and family at Chute Boxe showed how much they cared for me and for my family. And it’s that care, that passion, that family energy that is going to help me achieve a world title faster than anything else on this planet.”
It may sound cheesy, but love is a wonderful counter-punch to hate. And as far as Garry is concerned the ‘barrage of hate’ has done nothing to take away from his love of competition and the sport of MMA.
“If I didn’t enjoy it, I wouldn’t do it,” he said about the act of fighting. “If I didn’t enjoy it, I wouldn’t have as much fun as I do when I’m in that Octagon. I have a tattoo on my body that says “love the life you live and live the life you love.” If I’m not abiding by that rule or that statement, then I’m not going to do it. If I don’t like what I’m doing I’m not going to do it. If I’m not enjoying my days then I’m going to change it, because I want to have fun.
“For me, fighting is fun. I don’t have to do this. I chose to do this. And that’s the biggest part for me. I’m in this because I want to be the best in the world. I’m in this because I want to create a legacy. I’m in this because I want to be one of the best to ever do it. And I’m excited by the journey to get to that point.”
The journey moves to Anaheim
At Saturday’s UFC 298 Garry is scheduled to fight Geoff Neal. The fight comes after Garry was forced to pull out of a fight with Vicente Luque on the tail end of 2023. His pull out was due to the flu and pneumonia. It was the first time he’s had to back out of a scheduled appearance. And that gnaws at him.
The UFC offered Garry the chance to either fight Luque in January or Neal in February. Garry said UFC doctors told him a January fight wouldn’t be wise due to his condition, so he picked Neal; someone he was supposed to fight last summer at UFC 292.
Neal withdrew from that bout, but not before some Garry trash talk inflamed their match-up (splitting opinion online). The main volley in Garry’s assault on Neal was a T-shirt showing Neal’s recent mugshot related to an arrest on suspicion of driving under the influence and unlawful possession of a firearm. Neal has been transparent with how much that shirt has irked him and how it has motivated him to hurt ‘The Future’ when they finally step into the cage.
If you allow a T-shirt to do that much damage to you, then that’s a very weak mind. And I’m going to take advantage of that on fight week.
Garry said he was bemused by Neal’s reaction to the shirt.
“It definitely hit a nerve, for sure,” said Garry, still sounding somewhat shocked. “It definitely hit a nerve. There’s no question in that. I believe completely and entirely that a massive part of him pulling out of that fight was that he was pissed off and upset and hurt and angry. And I think if you allow a T-shirt to do that much damage to you, then that’s a very weak mind. And I’m going to take advantage of that on fight week.
“So I think you can take it whatever way you want, it’s obviously banter. I mean, if you have a mugshot and I’m trying to sell a fight that people don’t know about, that’s the funniest way to do it and I had so much fun making that and wearing it and it was so f**king funny. Some people took it so to heart, that’s up to them, that’s their choice. I had a laugh doing it and I’d do it again if I wanted to.”
Garry said he believed verbal sparring and fight promotion are part of the overall battle when it comes to prize fighting and cited Conor McGregor versus Jose Aldo as an example of beating a fighter before the first bell has wrung.
“You can affect someone’s way of thinking, someone’s emotions, with your voice and that’s so powerful,” he said. “Without throwing any weapons of elbows or knees or punches or kicks or anything, you can mentally and physically affect someone before you get into that Octagon. So absolutely you have to look at it as part of the battle.”
Garry added that, since Neal seemed so perturbed by his first attempts at mental warfare, you can expect to see more of that during fight week. Garry was also careful to point out that this effort wasn’t in any way connected to how much of a threat he viewed Neal to be.
“I’ve never been concerned with anyone I fight,” he said. “When I fight I think in absolute positives. I think of everything that could go right and I focus on that while also understanding that could go wrong.
“I understand Geoff Neal’s entire game-plan and what he has to do to succeed and I have to look at that and think OK, how can I counteract that the best way possible and not let him succeed at all and give me the best avenue to success. … Geoff isn’t someone I worry about. He’s got a big left hand and he’s mainly a boxer. I very rarely get touched and I’m way faster, way more technical and have far more in my arsenal than he does. So for me, I see this fight as being very calm, very calculated and when the time arises, I’ll be super efficient to get the finish.”
The Future is now for Ian Machado Garry
This weekend Ian Machado Garry stakes his undefeated record at UFC 298. On the main card he’ll face his toughest test inside the cage. Whether Geoff Neal is the best opponent he has faced is up for debate. But Garry has never walked into an arena with this amount of attention (positive and negative).
This is what he wants, though. Garry talks of dreams that include not just being a UFC champion, but a mainstream sports star, less a McGregor, but more a Ronaldo or Serena. If he wants that, what he faces on Saturday, both inside the cage and in the seats around it, are just appetizers for what’s to come.
If Garry can’t handle the attention, or Neal’s left hand, then ‘The Future’ may not be the one he’s currently visualizing. But if Garry does what he says he will (something he’s had no problem doing in his career thus far) then next up can only be other contenders at 170 lbs.
He’s fought a great game up to this point and, from personal experience, talked a fantastic game heading into this contest. Now it’s time to see if Garry, already a unique character in the sport, can build upon his platform and prove that, in addition to being a professional athlete, he’s also a killer. Because one of those will get you fame and endorsements, but the other is what you need to be a champion in a sport where most others measure their progress by how much hurt they can do.
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