Ian
Garry continues to be disinterested in his upcoming fight with
former Bellator
MMA standout Michael
Page.
Advertisement
Garry and Page will meet in a welterweight clash at UFC 303
on June 29 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. It was Page who
rallied hard for the booking against Garry, who was reluctant to
accept it initially.
While the matchup has been made, Garry is still not interested in
it with less than a week to go before fight night.
In his seven-fight undefeated
UFC run, Garry has already been tested against perennially
ranked veterans like Neil Magny
and Geoff
Neal. Going forward, Garry wants fights which would help him
inch closer to his ultimate goal of winning UFC gold. However,
fighting a lower-ranked Page doesn’t add to that in any manner, in
Garry’s opinion. Garry would have preferred an opponent ranked
higher than him such as Colby
Covington. Garry explained his point of view during a recent
appearance on “The MMA Hour.”
“I’m still not interested in it,” he said. “I have no interest in
it, I’ve told you. Here’s the way I look at it: I’m undefeated,
I’ve beaten everybody put in front of me in the best way I believe
I can. And I go out there and I get my hand raised any way, shape
and form possible. That is my job. When I do that, I fight up
because my goal is to be the world champion.
“I’m looking at the guys above me. There’s six or seven guys ahead
of me, there’s Gilbert [Burns], there’s Shavkat [Rakhmonov],
there’s Jack
Della Maddalena, there’s Colby [Covington], there’s [Kamaru]
Usman, Belal [Muhammad] and Leon [Edwards]. All I’ve done in my
career is win. I deserve to fight one of those guys. I have to
fight one of those guys because that is my projection. I’m on a
projection to be one of the world champions. I’m on a projection to
be one of the biggest stars the sport’s ever seen. I have no
interest in fighting below me. I’ve already fought [No.] 15 in the
world, 10 in the world, 8 in the world, why on Earth would I want
to fight No. 13? I still have no interest in fighting Michael. I
have no interest in fighting him.”