Michael Bisping isn’t counting out Ian Machado Garry from winning at UFC 310 but he recognizes that his path to victory is much slimmer than his opponent Shavkat Rakhmonov.
The fight that came together on short notice to serve as the co-main event on the final UFC pay-per-view in 2024 is set to crown a new No. 1 contender in the welterweight division with the winner expected to face champion Belal Muhammad once he recovers from a foot infection that forced him to wait until next year to defend his title. Both fighters sport similar undefeated records but Bisping believes the odds definitely favor Rakhmonov, especially if he’s able to dictate where the fight takes place.
“I’ve said this before, you’ve got to have a lot of respect for Ian Garry,” Bisping said on his YouTube channel. “He didn’t have to take this fight but can he stop the takedown? It seems like all I’m talking about here is takedowns. Shavkat Rakhmonov, he’s very tall for the division, as is Ian Garry. They’re both 6-foot-3 and they’re both competent strikers.
“Ian Garry’s probably going to dance around the octagon and use the exact same game plan what he did against Geoff Neal. He’s got to keep Shavkat Rakhmonov off him. If he can’t stop the takedown, he will get finished. That’s no disrespect to Ian Garry.”
Of course, Bisping recognizes that Garry has a strategy that could potentially work against anybody in the division but it’s a dangerous game to play with someone like Rakhmonov.
During his undefeated run through the UFC with six straight wins, Rakhmonov has finished every single opponent with five of those fights ending by submission. Bisping believes if Rakhmonov can employ those same tactics against Garry then he’s likely to walk out of UFC 310 as a winner with a title shot awaiting him in 2025.
“[Ian Garry] might be able to dance around, use the reach, use the range, use the movement, be fast, be elusive, be nice and crisp, be light on your toes and be dedicated enough to not allow himself to get involved into a brawl,” Bisping said. “If he does that, Shavkat’s going to get a hold of him. If he gets a hold of him, he’s going to get [Ian Garry] down. If he gets him down, it’s going to be lights out.
“Look at Shavkat’s last fight [against] Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson. A man that’s spent his entire life stopping takedowns. But what did Shavkat do? Boxed his way into a clinch and then slowly but surely and methodically worked his way down. So the story in that fight is simple — can Ian Garry stop the takedown? Because if he can’t someone’s ‘O’ is going to go and that’s probably going to be Ian Garry’s.”
If Garry wants to avoid that fate, Bisping suggests that he might want to put on the kind of performance that isn’t going to get the crowd all that excited but it gives him a much better chance to leave victorious.
Having a Fight of the Night doesn’t really matter if Garry loses so Bisping advises him to stick to a basic game plan and don’t deviate from that just because a raucous audience inside T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas might let him hear about it.
“[Ian Garry] does have a path to victory of using the range, sticking and moving,” Bipsing said. “The crowd will boo but who cares about the crowd. Winning is all that matters.”
