RESOLVING THE LEDGER
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PHILADELPHIA – Ian Machado Garry 's respectful and friendly attitude at UFC 330 didn't sit well with UFC CEO Dana White.
This past Saturday, in the main event of UFC 330, Machado Garry (17-2 MMA, 10-2 UFC) fell short of dethroning UFC welterweight champion Islam Makhachev . The Irishman lost a unanimous decision to Makhachev (29-1 MMA, 18-1 UFC) in a competitive bout that saw Machado Garry come up late in the fight.
White thinks the fight could've gone much differently if Machado Garry dropped his friendly and respectful gestures, as he was hugging and shaking hands with the champion throughout the title bout.
"I think that this is my honest opinion on it; I felt like tonight was set up for the upset," White said at the UFC 330 post-fight interview. "I felt like the upset could happen tonight with so much on the line, all the records that Islam has, and he's going to break Anderson Silva's record. There's weight classes for a reason. Ian Gary is a big, rangy, strong guy who has great takedown defense. I mean, if you look at his takedown defense tonight against Islam, it was impressive. I felt like, I think that Ian is a talented guy. If he had even an ounce of killer instinct in that fifth round, he had been beating him to the body. Islam's whole, I think, right side was beat up. His face was beat up. You don't come out and hug and shake hands. That sh*t drives me fucking crazy when there's so much at stake.
"There's also a lot of mental gamesmanship, whatever you want to call it, in this game. You come out in that fifth round with a flying knee or something crazy, and you try to finish the fight. I think that this is one of those fights that Ian will go back and watch and say, 'F*ck, I wish I could do that over again.'"
Machado Garry had only lost once before fighting Makhachev, and he entered the fight off back-to-back decision wins over Carlos Prates and Belal Muhammad. Although he was an underdog at UFC 330, many pundits and experts were giving Machado Garry a legitimate chance of winning the fight.
White felt Machado Garry had something going, but he also has to give Makhachev credit for completing his first UFC welterweight title defense.
"If he came out and tried to destroy and win that last round, with everything that he had, I think it's a totally different fight," White said. "And then he gives Islam that explosive, you know, he exploded up and got his back. Once he took his back and put the hooks in, that was a wrap. He's going to ride that out to the round ends.
"Yeah I felt like this, that's how I felt. But on the Islam side, Islam went out; it's the complete opposite. Now against a bigger, strong, rangy guy who has good takedown defense, controlled him, shut him down. I don't know if he was in his head, and Ian felt like he had to come out and shake hands in the fifth round or whatever, but Islam did exactly what he needed to do to win that fight."
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Dana White: Ian Machado Garry's lack of 'killer instinct' cost him
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