IAN MACHADO GARRY has fallen to his first defeat in the UFC.
Shavkat Rakhmonov won a close contest at UFC 310 in Las Vegas last night, taking the verdict by unanimous decision, 48-47, 48-47, 48-47.
Garry was the first fighter to take Rakhmonov the distance as he improved to 19-0, but the Dublin welterweight’s record fell to 15-1.
Afterwards, he claimed the Kazakh “won by opinion” but accepted the result and took pride in his performance.
“In victory and in defeat, I’m still the same person,” Garry told his post-fight press conference. “I am humble in victory and defeat, I always have been.
“And I do not feel like I lost today. My hand might not have got raised, but I came out and I fought a giant, I came out and I fought the bogeyman. And I showed that he’s f****** human.
“I went out there on three weeks’ notice and I saved this event, I saved this card against the scariest man in the division, and I went out there and I stopped almost everything.
“There was at no point that he looked like he would finish the fight; I put him in two submissions, I took his back, I had fun.”
“I showed that I can hang with the single best in the division, and I proved tonight, on short notice, that I can absolutely be a champion,” he added. “I can do it for five rounds and there is no holes in my game, there was nothing that man brought from me tonight…
“He won by opinion, and that is okay, I can live with that, and I am very happy with my performance tonight.”
