Ian Machado Garry fights Carlos Prates in the main event of UFC On ESPN 66 next weekend, and he’s already engaging in mental warfare with his opponent ahead of their showdown.
“This is a video of Carlos Prates and his true fighting spirit,” Garry said while watching a clip of his opponent losing to Mikhail Romanchuck in a regional Chinese promotion back in 2017. “It’s called being a quitter.”
“He had just been beaten up all the rounds prior. Puts his hand up, shakes his head, says, ‘I’m done,’ and then just drops to the ground in absolute despair because he knows that deep down he’s not a fighter.”
Prates did lose that fight to Romanchuck, though it didn’t go down quite as described by Garry as the TKO actually happened barely two minutes into the opening round.
It’s worth noting that at that time Prates held a less than impressive 7-5 MMA record, making it seem unlikely that he’d ever end up in the UFC.
However, Prates has since gone on to win 14 out of his next 15 fights, while simultaneously also going on a long winning streak in kickboxing competitions too.
And during that run four of his victories have come inside the UFC’s Octagon, with the icing on the cake being that all four have come by way of knockout.
As such, Prates has little time for Garry’s mind-games and has vowed to make him pay for his words when they fight in Kansas City next weekend.
“We’re here training, while Ian Garry is talking sh*t on the internet,” Prates wrote. “You have a lot of free time…On the 26th, I’ll punch him in the mouth… A**hole.”
Garry went undefeated in the first 15 fights of his career, including an eight-fight winning streak in the UFC, but that run was broken back in December when he was beaten on the scorecards by Shavkat Rakhmonov in a welterweight title elimination fight.
That leaves him ranked No.7 in the division heading into this fight, while Prates is currently placed at No.13.
