Over the weekend, UFC 310 took place from inside T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, NV on ESPN+ pay-per-view. Like many MMA fans the world over, Kamaru Usman (20-4 MMA, 15-3 UFC), once the UFC Welterweight Champion, was sitting on his couch and taking in the night’s action on his TV screen.
In the co-main event of the evening on Saturday night, a battle for the No. 1 contender status in the 170-lb. weight class took place between Ian Machado Garry (15-1 MMA, 8-1 UFC) and Shavkat Rakhmonov (19-0 MMA, 7-0 UFC). The fight went the advertised five-round maximum in Sin City, with the former scoring the victory by unanimous decision.
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Just as with every marquee fight on an MMA card, fighters and fans alike have taken to various platforms to air their respective opinions on the happenings in the cage. Kamaru Usman was one of them on Monday.
Kamaru Usman and Henry Cejudo Offer Responses on UFC 310
During the Monday episode of the Pound 4 Pound podcast, co-hosted by Kamaru Usman and Henry Cejudo, the men discussed the ups and downs of the event, with the latter grading the final pay-per-view event of 2024 as a C-minus.
“I thought there was a lot of misjudging,” Cejudo began. “I thought there was a lot of overhyped fights that didn’t really deliver, but I also felt like there [are] some rising stars in the making. I think, overall, and we can go through all of that, but I think overall, I think this wasn’t like the best pay-per-view card to pretty much end on, even though there [were] finishes, there [were] fights that went the distance. For this card, it just wasn’t it. It just wasn’t what we had prior.”
Kamaru Usman’s Thoughts on Ian Machado Garry
One topic of discussion broached during the podcast by Henry Cejudo was that of the potential that Garry and Usman will potentially square off against one another on a later card.
“Does he even deserve that?”, Usman asked about a possible fight against Ian Machado Garry. “What I’m going to say is, leading up to this, there was a lot being said. He made a lot of things, ‘Oh, this, everyone’s running from me. These guys are running from me.'”
Kamaru Usman stood his ground, making his opinion crystal clear.
“I don’t run from anybody,” he continued. “No one. I run from no one. I don’t know too many guys that are going to run from anyone. This is the game. We fight to make money. If we don’t fight, we don’t get paid. Anyone in the UFC has to step in there in order to get paid. So the notion of ‘Oh, yeah, they were scared of me. They were running from me,’ like, who are you? Who are you [to think that] I, of all people, am scared of you?”
“The biggest thing for me is I need to get healthy,” he continued. “It doesn’t matter who it is. Once I’m healthy and I feel that I’m healthy to get back in there and do what I do, I don’t care. You could bring King Kong and King Kong’s brothers [into the Octagon.] If they can make 170, we’d get it on, so it is what is.”
Kamaru Usman Saw Weaknesses On Display in UFC 310 Co-Main Event
In watching the fight itself, Kamaru Usman was scouting for a potential fight at some point with either man. Given that Usman is known as a strategist inside the cage, he mentioned that both fighters have areas that need improvement before they had back to the Octagon for the next fight.
“That’s what I expected,” he said. “Ian’s a very good and dynamic striker. You can tell. You saw that in the fight. If he’s able to create space, then he’s able to kind of get his flow going, and Shavkat wants to get in on the action… ‘I’ve got to get my hands on you.’ Obviously, with the potential of me fighting him, I don’t want to give too much away, but these are some of the things that I’m seeing. There [are] holes in both of their games.”
Kamaru Usman felt that the ground game resulted Ian Machado Garry’s undoing on Saturday night.
“I am a wrestler,” he mentioned. “Once Ian got taken down a few times, then the fight kind of got away from him. Shavkat, as far as standing and putting the combinations together he couldn’t really do that well with Ian Garry. There’s holes in both of their games.”
