Like Uma Thurman’s Bride in Quentin Tarantino’s revenge epic Kill Bill, Ian Machado Garry is keeping a list of all those who wronged him, and he absolutely plans on checking off every one.
His main focus at UFC 298 centers around beating Geoff Neal and advancing his ranking in the welterweight division. But the 26-year-old prospect hasn’t forgotten the abhorrent comments aimed at his family in recent months. Garry’s disdain mostly lies with former UFC middleweight champion Sean Strickland and welterweight contender Colby Covington, both of whom have targeted his wife – and by extension, his son – in social media posts, interviews and press conferences.
As much as he’s enjoyed trash talking his opponents since joining the UFC roster, Garry said there are limits, and he won’t forget how Strickland and Covington crossed the line.
“Listen, we can shoot shots at each other all day long, me and another bloke, but here’s the two things I’ll point out — my wife was called a pedophile by Sean Strickland,” Garry said during UFC 298 media day. “No woman ever deserves to be called that. My son, the people that follow Sean Strickland, commented on a couple of my photos at the start of all this saying, ‘Is the kid even his?’ I should never have to hear that. Those two things, they emotionally get me.
“I’ll get mine back. I’ll thump the f****** mouth off Sean Strickland one day, and there will be nothing he can do about it. I’ll talk to him, I’ll dance in his face, I’ll do whatever I want, because the truth is when we get locked into that cage one day, he’s never going to be able to deal with me.”
After taking aim at Garry and his wife, Strickland physically attacked Dricus du Plessis when his UFC 297 opponent brought up the abuse he suffered in his childhood. Cooler heads eventually prevailed, but Strickland said some subjects should be off limits — including wives and children.
Garry noticed that that didn’t seem to apply where his family was concerned, and he’s not going to let Strickland off the hook.
“The truth is, I have a target on my back,” Garry said. “I have the ability to stand here and shoot shots at anyone I want, because this is my job, and they have the opportunity in return. So for me, when you attack people in my circle where they don’t deserve it, that’s out of line. Look, Sean Strickland is not the f****** voice we should be listening to. He’s deeply, deeply indebted with trauma, and he should just be silent and try to deal with his own personal issues himself, and that’s where it mainly came from.
“For sure, there’s no f****** man on the planet that talks about my wife or my family like that and doesn’t get it eventually. The truth is, he’s never going to be relevant again. He’s lost the belt. He’s lost the interest. There’s a point at which I’ll jump in on a short-notice fight, and I’ll dance all over him. I’m far too quick. I’m far too talented, and he’ll just be missing.”
The same goes for Covington after he basically followed Strickland’s lead with verbal attacks aimed at Garry and his wife.
“I want to beat Geoff Neal in spectacular fashion this weekend, then I’m going to fight Colby Covington, and I’m going to retire him, and I’m going to rid the clown from the UFC,” Garry said. “Then I’ll take someone [ranked] three, two or one in the world, I’ll beat them, and I’ll earn my title shot next year.”
“I think [Colby] has no other choice. When I beat Geoff Neal on Saturday, there’s only one choice, and it’s what I say.”
Despite the ugly comments made toward his family, Garry won’t stop engaging in mental warfare with his opponents. But he promises he’ll never take it as far as Covington or Strickland.
In his opinion, Garry believes intelligent, well-researched and funny trash talk always has a place in the sport, but fighters such as Strickland and Covington have taken things so low that nobody enjoys it.
“I’ll still talk s*** – that’s the person I am,” Garry said. “I’ll talk s***. You want to clap at me, I’ll clap back. That’s how I’ve grown up. That’s the way me and my friends grew up. But there’s a line. There’s a line on what you say and what you do, and it’s not trash to call my wife a pedophile, or say my kid isn’t even mine. That’s not trash talk. That’s abuse. That’s horrible, and no person on the planet deserves that.
“I feel like we’ve seen it recently, and the two main culprits are f****** Colby and Sean Strickland. Colby bringing up Leon [Edwards’] dad and Sean just being negative toward every single person possible. It shows a very dark age in MMA. This is not what the sport’s about.”