Islam Makhachev respects all of his opponents, but that doesn’t mean he needs to express those feelings at the beginning and end of every single round.
But that’s exactly what Ian Machado Garry did on Saturday night as he was constantly shaking Makhachev’s hand, hugging him or dapping him up during their fight. Garry apparently even offered words of encouragement at certain points during the five-round battle, and while Makhachev appreciated his opponen’s graciousness, he wishes that was all saved until the UFC 330 fight was over.
“Honestly, I don’t understand,” Makhachev said about Garry’s actions during the UFC 330 post-fight press conference. “This is a fight. This is not something we have to hug each other every round. We’re going to war. We’re going to break the face, to break the eye. I respect all my opponents. But [maybe he’s young]. He respects too much.
“I respect him. He’s a good guy. Very kind. But this is a war. Look at my face. I just come to beat everything. It’s not something you have to play. This is a fight. This is not a game.”
While Garry’s actions didn’t change the result in the fight, Makhachev gave him credit for a job well done on Saturday night.
Throughout the 25 minute battle, Garry showcased solid takedown defense while stopping Makhchev from ever getting close to a potential submission.
That said, Makhachev was growing frustrated with Garry’s refusal to really engage with him, which made it that much harder for him to set up grappling exchanges or other parts of his game plan he wanted to execute.
“Ian is a good opponent,” Makhachev said. “Very hard to fight with someone who stands and waits. He’s just waiting and very hard to show a good performance with someone like that. He stands, I see his leg, I try to take him down. He has some good defense but very hard to show a good performance with someone like that.”
Makhachev also said there were some slightly dirty moves happening in the octagon at UFC 330, especially when Garry apparently head butted him when they were battling for position on the ground.
When the fight ended, Makhachev realized that his nose was busted up and he believes that was a direct result of the blow Garry landed after they hit the ground during a takedown.
“He gave me too many scratches,” Makhachev said. “He gave me a very hard head butt at the end of the fourth round when I made him slam, you can see he gave me a back head butt. In the fight, I don’t remember when my nose is bleeding and right away the blood is coming out. I thought maybe I broke the nose or something.
“He gave me a very hard head butt. It’s OK. Hard fight. It makes you improve and I feel I improved.”
As far as the future goes, Makhachev isn’t slowing down or capping how many more fights he might have before retirement. Instead, the reigning UFC welterweight champion is already thinking about how he can get better from this performance and prepare for his next opponent as soon as he’s healthy and ready to go again.
“I still have to gain some weight, try to be more big, more power and I have time,” Makhachev said. “What this fight showed me and showed everybody, it’s not my hardest fight. It doesn’t matter how this fight is going to go, easy or hard, from the first minute to the last minute to the last second, I’m going to war. I’m going to fight every second.”