Ian Machado Garry and Khamzat Chimaev had a brief altercation that was caught on camera while backstage after the Irish star’s win over Belal Muhammad at UFC Fight Night 265 in Qatar yesterday.

The flashpoint seemingly came out of nowhere when they met backstage, with Garry reportedly having initially went over to congratulate Arman Tsarukyan on his victory in the main event, before also briefly interacting with his teammate Khamzat.

“Good job tonight, good job,” Garry said as he patted Khamzat on the back and then turned away to talk to the cameraman that was following him.

Garry then appeared ready to walk away, but as he turned around he saw a security guard standing between him and Khamzat and tried to assure him there wasn’t a problem.

“Oh, he’s not going to fight me, he’s good!” Garry told the guard. “He’s the champion, don’t worry.”

Khamzat then said something that couldn’t be heard, before Garry asked him, “What’s wrong?”

The middleweight champion responded by aggressively shoving Garry away and saying, “I’ll f**k you up, bitch!”

“Dude, that’s just childish,” Garry responded. “You’re meant to be a champion of this sport! Your friend just won, don’t ruin his victory. Arman, congratulations.”

Garry’s outspoken personality rubs some people the wrong way, but it wasn’t immediately obvious what had angered Khamzat about the seemingly innocuous interaction between the two.

However, Khamzat later said that he had felt disrespected by Garry patting him on the back harder than he should have.

“If you touch somebody, touch respectfully,” Khamzat told reporters. “Don’t punch somebody on the behind, you know. He was punching, like tapping my back. If you want to show respect, respectfully touch somebody… He came there to make some hype, you know that guy. He is trying to be Conor [McGregor], but he’ll never be Conor.”

Meanwhile, Garry also had his say on the incident during his post-fight talk with the press.

“You’re meant to be a champion of this sport, you’re a child,” Garry said as he recalled what happened. “You’re taking away from your friend’s win over here. How about you calm down, slow down, and have a bit of respect for your friend over here, rather than try to steal the headlines.

“Do you want the honest truth? It’s little d**k energy. ‘I need to show that I’m tough.’ You’re the champion of the world; no one needs to see you be tough.”

Despite the sudden bad blood between the two, it doesn’t sound like Garry is in a hurry to move up to middleweight to settle their differences in the Octagon.

“Listen, I’m going to tell you the same story I tell everyone when I think about moving up to middleweight,” Garry said. “I’ve trained in Kill Cliff, Fla. Everybody here knows Gregory Rodrigues. When I stand in front of that man, I’m like, ‘Yeah, that’s not a good idea to move up to middleweight.’ He is absolutely massive and when I look at that I’m like, I’m 28. Maybe when I’m 34, 35, and I’ve grown up and I’ve got a bit bigger, maybe my metabolism starts to slow down, I start to hit that hard. I could move up now and I’m absolutely going to be doing the same things I do. Smart, technical, elusive, fast, I could have success. But there’s a lot of people in this welterweight division that I need to beat and dominate.

“I want to do this GSP-style. I want to go through the division, dominate the division, beat every flash in the pan, beat every next No. 1 contender in the world, and dominate this division. I’m 28 years of age as of Monday this week. I have a decade of domination in this sport, I have no rush to move up to middleweight.”