Ian Machado Garry responds to Sean Strickland, details UFC PI run-in
Ian Machado Garry on one hand wants to make Sean Strickland answer for all the things he’s said. On the other, he feels like the UFC middleweight champ needs a hug.
Garry on Monday responded to Strickland’s recent comments about he and his wife, Layla Machado Garry, and detailed his side of a run-in at the UFC Performance Institute that the champ revealed in one of several verbal shots.
“I would say it was a scene,” Garry said Monday on The MMA Hour. “It was more of a glance, and him being shuffled into a lift, and that was it. And he had a little snicker on his face, and I shouted something at him — I don’t know what I shouted at him, but I shouted something at him before I even had a chance to think.
“My body went straight into fight mode, and then the doors closed. There was nothing much to it, to be honest.”
Strickland’s version agreed with Garry’s in that the UFC prevented a physical confrontation with the standout welterweight, who Strickland called a “f****** cuck” and a “f****** funny little dweeb.” In his typical way, the middleweight champ mixed insults with backhanded compliments, saying he liked Garry and thought he was “a dumbass f****** kid who got some p**** that was too good for him and it got in his head and it f***** you up.”
As Garry noted, he had a gut response to Strickland at the UFC PI, and while he couldn’t remember what it was, it probably wasn’t a verbal olive branch. He isn’t sure what would have happened had he gotten close to Strickland, but one thing he wouldn’t have done was throw down.
“I would have f****** talked to him, for sure,” Garry said. “I don’t know. See, this is the thing, I’m not going to start throwing hands with the bloke, because I’m a better person than that, and I would like to be above all the s*** that was said, and just sit there and be to him, ‘I feel sorry for you, man. I feel sorry for you — I feel sorry that all this s*** has you that hurt that you’re attacking everybody else.’
“I feel like that’s what I’d like to say — what I would have said, I don’t know.”
Garry later addressed Strickland in response to the middleweight champ’s emotional interview with Theo Von, pointing out the hypocrisy in declaring talk of child abuse off the table while attacking he and his family.
If Garry had one point he wanted to get across, it’s that Strickland’s behavior is more than distasteful — it’s wrong.
“I don’t personally care what happened in his childhood, or what happened in his past that has him the way he is now,” Garry said. “I don’t care what happened in your past. Don’t attack and project your pain onto other people, or other people’s families, because you can’t deal with it correctly.
“The UFC PI has mental health and has ways to deal with athletes’ mental health. Go talk to them and deal with it the way it should be dealt with — talk about it. Get rid of it, express it, release it, because to attack other people’s families and other people’s loved ones because you have childhood trauma, it’s completely unfair. It’s inexcusable. You don’t have a reason to attack other people because you are in pain. That’s my outlook on it.”
Garry has done a lot of processing about Strickland and the wave of negative attention directed at he and his family. The experience hasn’t been a pleasant one, but it’s been necessary to move forward in a positive way. For him, that means eventually making Strickland answer for his words in the octagon.
In the meantime, he would suggest Strickland find some other way to promote fights, because the champ is already finding out what it means to be on the receiving end of toxic talk.
“Don’t speak in that manner about anybody else on the planet,” Garry said. ”Deal with your issues first, and if I was someone who was throwing stones in the glass house vibes, protect your house first before you start throwing them at other people.”