UFC 268 Fighter to Watch: Ian Garry
Irish welterweight prospect makes his highly anticipated promotional debut on Saturday night at Madison Square Garden
Name: Ian Garry
Nickname: The Future
Record: 7-0 overall; UFC debut
Division: Welterweight
Team: Sanford MMA
Opponent: Jordan Williams (9-5 overall; 0-2 UFC)
If the Ian Garry hype hasn’t reached you yet, don’t worry — it will by the time he marches to the Octagon for his promotional debut this weekend at Madison Square Garden.
The 23-year-old Irish welterweight feels like a different kind of prospect in a number of ways.
It’s not just the unbeaten record because we’ve seen that before plenty of times, nor is it the Cage Warriors pedigree, because a bunch of champions from the tremendous Triple A organization have matriculated to the UFC roster without generating much buzz, but those are both pieces of the larger puzzle.
His age is another piece. His size, confidence, and swagger mix in there too, as does the fact that he set his sights on the UFC and the UFC only when starting out in this sport, outlining the path he would take to reach the biggest stage in the sport and then making it happen just as he forecasted. The fact that he ventured to the United States and set up shop with the team at Sanford MMA ahead of his debut factors in there as well, as the Deerfield Beach, Florida crew has produced a number of elite talents and helped guide Kamaru Usman to welterweight gold before the reigning champion parted ways with the camp earlier this year.
He’s also faced solid competition in building up his 7-0 record, making quick work of UFC alum Rostam Akman in March before claiming Cage Warriors gold with a unanimous decision win over Jack Grant in June.
There will be a tendency this week to invoke the name of Conor McGregor, the last massive prospect to emerge from Ireland and become a massive star under the UFC banner, which is both understandable and unfair, especially when he talks about the Irish superstar and wanting to follow in his footsteps quite frequently.
Garry isn’t McGregor and he shouldn’t be trying to emulate or replicate the way “The Notorious” one burst on the scene and almost instantly took over. He’s younger, less experienced, and less dynamic than McGregor was when he touched down in the Octagon for the first time in Stockholm, Sweden, and being tipped to be “the next Irish UFC superstar” carries a significant amount of weight, something McGregor wasn’t saddled with when he arrived because there hadn’t been an Irish UFC superstar before him.
As cool as it is that Garry is making his debut in the same arena where McGregor made history by becoming the first two-weight world champion in UFC history, the 23-year-old has to be judged by his own performances, with his upside projected based on what he’s shown and where it could lead, not the hopes and dreams of a nation and the always too early, rarely justified comparisons to a one-of-a-kind figure that came before him.
What stands out most for me about Garry as he readies to make the walk for the first time in the UFC are his size and frame — he’s a legitimate six-foot-three, with plenty of reach, and should have an ability to add functional mass without needing to change divisions. There is natural power in his strikes and he doesn’t over-extend the way many young, dominant prospects can when they’re climbing the ranks unimpeded; he lets the fight come to him, lets things run their natural course, and then takes advantages of the opportunities presented to him. It’s a veteran trait that will serve him well as he begins his UFC journey.
This weekend’s fight with Williams is a good opportunity for Garry to establish a baseline for where he stands in the division, as the Contender Series graduate (Class of ‘20) has flashed decent power, but ultimately landed on the wrong side of the results in each of his first two trips into the Octagon.
Garry actually has more to lose this weekend than he does to win, as beating Williams is expected and won’t produce much of a promotion in the divisional hierarchy, even if the promising newcomer goes out there an styles on the Factory X Muay Thai representative and finishes him early, as Mickey Gall was able to get Williams out of there in three minutes last time out.
But it’s still a chance to validate some of the advanced billing; to showcase all the pieces that make him feel like a different kind of prospect and start building buzz within the insulated UFC audience.
Calling yourself “The Future” is brassy and brings lofty expectations that can be very difficult to reach (ask Maycee Barber), but thus far, Garry has looked the part and held up his end of things, providing no reason as of yet to doubt that he’s capable of becoming a contender in the UFC welterweight division somewhere down the line.
He’s not “The Next Conor McGregor” — he’s the first Ian Garry and he’s very, very talented.