Ian Garry wants to set the record straight.
The last month or so hasn’t been easy on the top ranked UFC Welterweight or his family. Garry has received quite a lot backlash for his ‘over-the-line’ trash talk to fellow fighters, fight withdrawal at UFC 296 and more. His wife, Layla, also faces controversy for her relationship with Garry.
Garry’s name was echoed through the promotion’s final fight week of 2023 as Colby Covington and Sean Strickland both took verbal shots at the Irishman.
Ian Garry: MMA’s Reaching A ‘Very Toxic Level’ In Trash Talk
While he’s known to dish it out himself, Garry wants the world to know there’s a difference between ‘The Future’ and stars like Covington and Strickland, who don’t hold their tongues all too well.
“My job is promoting my fight to the best level I can,” Garry said on The MMA Hour. “To show off and have the most fun fight that I can. I’m not viciously assaulting and attacking people’s families, in any way, shape, or form to the way the MMA world is going at a very toxic level.
“I mean, the best example he’s an absolute piece of sh*t for doing this, but it’s a perfect example: you’ve got someone like Colby Covington who isn’t trash talking, he’s desperate to the point at which he mentioned [Leon Edwards’] father’s murder. He used that story point in someone’s life to try to stay relevant, to try to win a mental battle.
“That’s that’s the point in in MMA where we’re at,” Garry stated.
‘We’ve Got People Like Sean Strickland… I’m Not That’
As for Sean Strickland, this is what Garry had to say.
“Then, we’ve got people like Sean Strickland who were talking all that mad stuff online, attacking people’s families and people’s wives. The truth is, he is just someone who is dealing with his trials with trauma, the hurt, the pain from his past and projecting it to the world.
“I’m not that,” Garry added. I am selling a fight and having fun in my life, and that’s it. I’m a disruptor. I’m a disruptor just like Jake Paul and Logan Paul and Conor McGregor and all of the best biggest stars in the world had just hooked us. But, there is a fine line.”
Trash talk in MMA has definitely taken a turn for the worst with the UFC’s most recent press conferences resulting in controversial headlines. Still, though, Ian Garry doesn’t see himself in the same light as Colby Covington, nor Sean Strickland.
