The war of words between this weekend’s UFC On ESPN 66 headliners is continuing in the build-up to the event with Carlos Prates branding Ian Machado Garry a ‘boring fighter’.
Prates was firing back after Garry took aim at him last week by declaring that he was a ‘quitter’, while watching a TKO loss the Brazilian had suffered back in 2017.
Naturally Prates hasn’t taken too kindly to that insult and has retaliated by pointing out that he’s already accomplished more in a single year in the Octagon than Garry has in four years.
“I’ve been in the company for a year, two main events, four bonuses, four knockouts,” Prates said in a new interview. “I think this kid has been in the UFC for about four years, he’s never had a main event.
“He won one bonus I think in his life. A bunch of decisions there, a f***ing boring fighter… He’s fighting in the main event today because I chose him…
“I think he’s making even more [money] than he made when he went to fight Shavkat… And at the end of it all, after he’s all beat up, when he wakes up after the fight, he’ll have to come and say: Thanks, Carlos Prates, you made me some good money.“
As surprising as it may seem, Prates is actually telling the truth when he says that Garry has never fought in a main event before, despite having gone on an eight-fight winning streak after joining the UFC.
There’s perhaps more to that than meets the eye though as the reality is that the UFC have always seen Garry as a marketable star, and his lack of main events has more to do with the fact that all but one of his fights so far have taken place on numbered UFC events, including his last four bouts all being on pay-per-view main cards.
Still, there’s no doubt that Prates has been the more lethal fighter of the two so far in the Octagon as all four of his victories to date have come by way of knockout, including one shared opponents with Garry in Neil Magny, who Prates KO’d in the opening round of his last fight, while Garry dominated him over three rounds.
As for Garry, he has racked up two TKO”s and one KO finish during his nine UFC fights so far, with his last four appearances all going to the scorecards.
However, Garry’s long undefeated run did take him to a title elimination fight last time out against Shavkat Rakhmonov in the co-main event of UFC 310, but led to the first loss of his career via unanimous decision.
And meanwhile, despite the impressive start to his UFC campaign, Prates is currently only ranked No.13 in the division, so he’s not in the title picture yet, but another impressive performance against Garry on Saturday night could instantly propel him right into the mix in the Top 10.
