Kamaru Usman believes UFC 310 exposed both Shavkat Rakhmonov and Ian Machado Garry’s games.
Rakhmonov (19-0 MMA, 7-0 UFC) scored a unanimous decision win over Machado Garry (15-1 MMA, 8-1 UFC) in this past Saturday’s five-round co-main event at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Rakhmonov saw the judges’ scorecards for the first time in his career and had to survive a late rear-naked choke attempt by Machado Garry.
Usman, who, like Rakhmonov and Machado Garry, has trained at Kill Cliff FC, wasn’t surprised with the way the fight played out.
“That’s what I expected,” Usman said on his “Pound 4 Pound” podcast. “Ian needs to create space. Ian’s a very good and dynamic striker. You could tell. You saw that in the fight. If he’s able to create space, then he’s able to kind of get his flow going.
“And Shavkat wants to get to the action, ‘I’ve got to get my hands on you.’ This is some of the things that I was seeing, but obviously with the potential of me potentially fighting him, I didn’t want to give too much away, but these are some of the things that I’m seeing. There are holes in both of their games.”
Prior to UFC 310, Usman said that the fight is only exciting on paper. He was right to a degree as Rakhmonov and Machado Garry spent plenty of time fighting in the clinch.
The former UFC welterweight champion thinks Rakhmonov’s competitive win over Machado Garry came down to heart.
“I am a wrestler,” Usman said. “Once Ian got taken down a few times then the fight kind of got away from him. Shavkat, as far as standing and putting the combinations together, he couldn’t really do that well with Ian Garry. There are holes in both of their games, but I expected a fight like this.
“And I knew it wasn’t going to be the most barnburner, exciting fight that a lot of people were salivating over. But nonetheless, it shows how Shavkat is a dog. He’s willing to just do whatever it takes to get in there and get that win, and so is Ian. It’s just that Shavkat was a little bit more of a dog than Ian Garry.”
For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 310.
