You can add Michael Chandler to the growing list of fighters who are talking about Ian Machado Garry.
Chandler has spent time training with both Garry and his next opponent, Vicente Luque as all three have been training at Kill Cliff FC in Florida. But in the last few weeks many fighters, including middleweight champion Sean Strickland, welterweight champion Leon Edwards, Brendan Allen, and Sean Brady. All four fighters have criticized Garry for the way he acts in the various gyms he attends.
While appearing on The MMA Hour, Chandler gave his take on why he thinks Garry is being targeted so much lately.
“Mine and Ian’s relationship is funny just because he is — I’ve got to be honest with you, I think he’s a little bit like what I wish I could be mentality-wise when it comes to my fight camp,” Chandler said. “When I go into my fight camps, don’t talk to me, don’t look at me sideways, don’t speak to me unless spoken to. I kind of turn into that guy, where I take it so seriously. And the way that he is, he’s so happy-go-lucky. He doesn’t care about anything whatsoever, right?
He continued, "So a differing in kind of mentalities when it comes to [stuff] like that. That doesn’t mean his is right, mine is wrong, or vice versa. But then when it comes to that, I know — obviously I was just down in Florida last week, I was training with Vincente [Luque], Shavkat [Rakhmonov], those guys are obviously fighting in a couple of weeks in Vegas. I’ll be out there. Ian chose not to do his camp this camp in Florida with us, so it’s interesting.
There was one thing that Chandler pointed out as an issue with Garry.
“I mean, he doesn’t show up on time all the time and he doesn’t show up at every practice, which really ticked me off,” Chandler said. “But that ticks me off about anybody else. There’s only a few people that I would actually say have perfect gym etiquette when it comes to that, Gilbert Burns being one of them. Shout out to Gilbert Burns, one of my favorite fighters. But as far as etiquette goes, I mean, I don’t really even know what gym etiquette he’s out there supposedly breaking, but to me he was always a pretty cool dude.
Despite the critique that Garry has been getting, Chandler says he's got the talent he keeps boasting about.
“But as far as Ian goes, man, he’s got a ton of talent," he said. "He’s got that Irish mystique to him, the way that he speaks and his accent, all that kind of stuff. He’s got the talent to boot, he’s got the confidence. If he keeps his head on his shoulders, he could be champion one day, for sure, but he’s got a tough test ahead of him in Vicente. And both of those guys I would consider teammates pretty much right now, probably Vicente even more because I’ve trained with Vicente for years and years and Ian has now kind of bounced around a little bit."
Chandler continued, "So we’ll see how it works out for him. He’s very much a me kind of fighter, whereas I’ve always been a we kind of fighter, focus on the team more than myself, and he’s more of a, ‘Hey, I know exactly what to do, I’m the guy who steps inside the cage,’ kind of guy. So we’ll see, we’ll see how it plays out for him. But I don’t think he’s a bad dude.”
Garry is scheduled to fight Luque at UFC 296 on Dec. 16 in Las Vegas, NV.
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