UFC fighter Ian Machado Garry has been compared to fellow Irishman Conor McGregor due to his brash demeanor and mental warfare tactics, using opponents’ words against them and acknowledging that while there are lines that shouldn’t be crossed in trash talk, he hasn’t crossed any yet.
Ian Machado Garry is making his mark in the UFC. Yet, it’s hard to ignore the parallels between him and fellow Irishman Conor McGregor.
Machado Garry, like McGregor, is known for his bold attitude outside the cage and his confidence during fights. The 26-year-old welterweight has always admired McGregor, who mastered the art of mental warfare with his opponents. McGregor’s trash talk often left fighters fuming before they even stepped into the octagon.
In his own career, Machado Garry has mirrored McGregor’s approach. He’s set to face former teammate Vicente Luque at UFC 296. In the run-up to his last fight against Geoff Neal, he created and sold a t-shirt featuring a mugshot of Neal, who’d been arrested on suspicion of DUI.
But when Neal dropped out of their fight, Machado Garry shifted his focus to his replacement, Neil Magny. Especially after Magny declared he planned on giving Machado Garry an “ass whooping.” Magny, a father, said he’d grown used to that kind of whooping.
Their feud escalated at the UFC 296 press conference and continued into the fight. Magny, who lost by a wide margin, yelled at Machado Garry during the match.
Magny later told SportsKeeda that Machado Garry’s words had real-life consequences. They were brought up during a custody battle amid his divorce. He said the way Machado Garry blew things out of proportion had significant consequences for him, affecting his relationship with his children.
Despite Magny’s anger at being portrayed as an abuser, Machado Garry has no regrets. He believes he was merely using Magny’s own words against him.
Machado Garry told MMA Fighting, “How do I turn the nice guy into the bad guy? I don’t believe I turned the nice guy into anything. I think I exposed him for what he is. Neil said the words he said in that press conference. The words that I used as ammunition came out of his own mouth.”
He continued, “His words were, ‘I’m a father, and I’ve been accustomed to giving out beatings, and I’m going to give Ian Garry the same beating.’ You don’t say something like that. I’ve just had a boy. I’m a father. I’m a protector now. I have a life that I need to look after and care for, for the rest of my existence.”
Machado Garry further explained, “When I hear a grown man sit there and say he’s gotten accustomed to whooping that ass, or that kind of ass-whooping, and he’s got a 3-year-old at home, Neil you’ve just done yourself in. I’m absolutely going to sit there and hound you about that. Because it’s your words, your actions. I’m just putting them out there for the world in a different way.”
Regarding Neal’s arrest, Machado Garry doesn’t think he did anything wrong. The mugshot was public record, just like the one he used for the t-shirt.
He said, “Geoff Neal, there is no f****** argument Geoff Neal f***** up in his lifetime and got a mugshot. Absolutely I’m going to use and abuse that if I’m your opponent. Absolutely. Geoff Neal pulled out because of mind games, because of a f****** t-shirt that I made and sold on Instagram.”
Machado Garry believes he got so deep into Neal’s mind that Neal didn’t even make it to the fight. He said, “But he has nobody else to blame other than himself. That’s it.”
While he defended his trash talk, Machado Garry also acknowledged that some lines shouldn’t be crossed. Unless, of course, an opponent crosses them first. For example, McGregor verbally attacked Dustin Poirier’s wife before their trilogy in 2021. Despite idolizing McGregor, Machado Garry understood how this could be seen as crossing the line.
He said, “I haven’t overstepped any boundaries yet when it comes to trash talk. If anything, I’ve been perfect. I’ve been perfectly underneath that line that you’re speaking about, and I don’t see any need to cross that right now until somebody else crosses it.”
He added, “Look, let’s put it this way — there was a line I could have crossed in the buildup to this fight [with Neil Magny], but I didn’t. I knew it, and I didn’t say it. I’m not going to get into it, but there’s a line there. Now to your point, there’s a line in trash talk, you go beyond it, and it’s not conceived the same way by people.”
He continued, “I understand what you mean with the, ‘Your wife is in my DMs,’ the Conor thing with Dustin, I get that. Conor’s a very intelligent man, and the way he built up fights and the way he got people emotionally invested with building up a storyline was building up animosity that was there or wasn’t there.”
Machado Garry sees McGregor following a similar path to NBA legend Michael Jordan. Jordan, considered one of the greatest basketball players in history, was also one of the most ruthless trash talkers in professional sports.
In the documentary The Last Dance, Jordan revealed he made up a slight from an opposing player, which led to him annihilating the opponent in their next game. Even a minor encounter at a restaurant, where an opposing coach didn’t greet him, enraged Jordan so much that he used it as motivation in the NBA Finals.
Machado Garry said, “When we saw Michael Jordan compete as one of the best competitors we’ve ever seen compete, he manifested and manipulated his own mind to think someone had said something about him in the past so he could go out there with a competitive hunger, a competitive edge.”
He added, “When you look at the greats, they have something that separates them from the rest of the pack, and it’s a will to compete and they will do anything possible to go out there and win.”
He concluded, “I have not stepped over single boundary yet. Neil Magny said the words he said. I just said them on a bigger platform to a bigger stage and repeated his own words to him. The only person he has to blame for those words is himself.”