Shavkat Rakhmonov believes Ian Machado Garry’s three step plan to fight Khamzat Chimaev at middleweight won’t get to step two.
Rakhmonov and Garry will battle in a five-round co-main event this Saturday at UFC 310 in a pivotal welterweight clash with a title shot against Belal Muhammad likely on the line.
In a recent interview on The Ariel Helwani Show, Garry said his plan is to beat Rakhmonov, win the welterweight title, then move up to middleweight to fight Chimaev. Rakhmonov’s believes Garry is thinking way too far ahead.
“Yeah, I think he’s going to stumble in the first step,” Rakhmonov told MMA Fighting.
Rakhmonov was originally scheduled to challenge Muhammad in the main event before the new champion was forced to withdraw due to a nasty bone infection. The undefeated fighter could’ve waited and walked into a championship bout when Muhammad healed up, but Rakhmonov decided to put his title shot on the line instead — mostly for him, and also to silence doubters that say he hasn’t earned the right to fight for the belt.
“The main reason is because I didn’t fight for almost a year and we don’t know how much it will take for Belal to come back and to recover, so I wanted to fight on this date to stay active and that’s why I agreed to fighting Garry.
“For sure [I wanted to prove I earned the title shot to fans]. Some people have doubts in me but I don’t doubt myself, and probably after the fight with Ian Garry, they’ll change their mind.”
Garry gets his biggest matchup to date and looks to improve to 3-0 in 2024 — all against ranked opposition. “The Future” was tested in both of his bouts this year, winning a pair of close decisions against Geoff Neal and Michael Page.
Rakhmonov paid attention to his past sparring partner’s 30 minutes of octagon time.
“Yeah, you know, it was two competitive fights, pretty close,” Rakhmonov explained. “I just thought that Ian won, [but] it could have went either way. That’s why if you don’t want to leave any questions, you have to finish fights, but Ian won both these fights by decision. That’s what happens in the UFC sometimes.”
At this time, Rakhmonov says he hasn’t been given any indication when Muhammad could return for his first title defense since defeating Leon Edwards at UFC 304. His focus is on Garry this Saturday, and no matter how it needs to happen, Rakhmonov is confident he’ll get his chance at UFC gold in 2025.
“All of that will end with my hand being raised with my victory,” Rakhmonov said.
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