After Shavkat Rakhmonov won his fight against Ian Machado Garry at UFC 310, UFC commentator Daniel Cormier revealed that Shavkat fought with a serious injury, which made his victory even more impressive.
Shavkat was originally set to fight for the welterweight title against Belal Muhammad at UFC 310, but that match didn’t happen. Instead, Shavkat chose to stay on the card and face Ian Machado Garry. Despite the tough fight, Shavkat came out on top, winning by unanimous decision after a hard-fought five rounds.
Daniel Cormier discloses Shavkat Rakhmonov fought through torn MCL at UFC 310
Both Shavkat Rakhmonov and Ian Machado Garry wanted to keep their perfect records, but the fight didn’t go as expected, especially since Shavkat had won all his previous fights by finish.
After the match, UFC commentator Daniel Cormier shared the reason for Shavkat’s unusual performance. In his post-fight interview, Shavkat, who is 30 years old, admitted that during his year-long break after fighting Stephen Thompson, he had been dealing with some challenges that affected his fight.
“I learned after, that (Shavkat) fought with an injury. I think he tore his MCL going into that fight. With a torn ligament in your knee, you’re not going to look like the killer that you looked like in fights prior,” said Cormier on his YouTube channel.
After Daniel Cormier explained Shavkat’s situation, it became clearer why he didn’t perform as well as usual. He didn’t look as strong or dangerous in the fight like he has before.
Even so, UFC legend Chael Sonnen gave credit to Ian Garry for his impressive performance. He believes Ian did well in several areas and deserves recognition for his win.
Chael Sonnen thinks the fight between Muhammad and Rakhmonov might be postponed, even though they’ve already faced off. Muhammad had to pull out of the UFC 310 main event because he broke his toe during training, which later got infected badly.
Muhammad even thought about amputating his toe to stay in the fight, but the injury got worse. Sonnen believes this could delay the title match. It’s also uncertain if Rakhmonov will need surgery after Cormier’s revelation about his condition.
Even though Shavkat was dealing with an injury, he shared in his UFC 310 post-fight press conference that he wants to fight Muhammad sometime in the first part of 2025. It’s still unclear if he will need surgery on his injured knee.
