{"id":330717,"date":"2025-12-06T03:23:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-06T03:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/330717\/"},"modified":"2025-12-06T03:23:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-06T03:23:07","slug":"kamaru-usman-you-cant-say-ian-machado-garry-deserves-title-shot-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/330717\/","title":{"rendered":"Kamaru Usman: You can&#8217;t say Ian Machado Garry deserves title shot now"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Kamaru Usman insists he&#8217;s the most deserving welterweight contender.<\/p>\n<p>As the former champion continues to campaign for a shot at UFC welterweight champ Islam Makhachev, other top contenders have made their case, too. Usman (21-4 MMA, 16-3 UFC) snapped his three-fight losing skid with a <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/article\/kamaru-usman-snaps-skid-grinds-053522426.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:win over Joaquin Buckley;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">win over Joaquin Buckley<\/a>, but argues his accolades make him a legacy fight for Makhachev.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>At UFC 322, Carlos Prates knocked out Leon Edwards, and Michael Morales took out Sean Brady. A week later at UFC Fight Night 265, Ian Machado Garry (17-1 MMA, 10-1 UFC) <a href=\"https:\/\/sports.yahoo.com\/article\/ufc-qatar-ian-machado-garry-203331857.html\" data-ylk=\"slk:defeated ex-champ Belal Muhammad;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;outcm:mb_qualified_link;_E:mb_qualified_link;ct:story;\" class=\"link  yahoo-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">defeated ex-champ Belal Muhammad<\/a>. Outside of himself, one contender stands out for Usman.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Who else would be worthy? I like a lot of these guys,&#8221; Usman said on his <a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/glQd4H9vU-c?si=FpLAYaDaUv0GFxcU\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:&quot;Pound 4 Pound&quot;;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">&#8220;Pound 4 Pound&#8221;<\/a> podcast with Henry Cejudo. &#8220;I&#8217;m fans of them. I would say right now, for me, I would say Prates. I still think maybe another fight because I feel like he&#8217;s done so much in such a short time. It wasn&#8217;t enough to let that ripple effect really touch the masses all over the world, but I would say Carlos Prates. Right now, I like everything I&#8217;m seeing from him.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;His willingness, his excitement to go out there and compete and fight. Even if he loses, it&#8217;s like, &#8216;OK, I have to fix that, and I&#8217;ll come back.&#8217; That&#8217;s what I love to see, and I think that&#8217;s what Dana (White), and the company, and Hunter (Campbell), and these guys love, is guys like that. So I love Prates. Morales, too, is also impressive. No hate on these guys. I love what these guys are doing. I&#8217;m a fan of these guys, and I&#8217;m going to continue to be a fan of these guys unless they give me a reason not to be.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Usman ranks Machado Garry behind the two rising welterweights.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Ian&#8217;s doing work, too, but you can&#8217;t literally sit here and say he&#8217;s done more work than what Prates has just done,&#8221; Usman said. &#8220;You can&#8217;t sit here and say he&#8217;s done more work than what Morales has done. He&#8217;s done good work, too.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: <a href=\"https:\/\/mmajunkie.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/ufc\/2025\/12\/05\/ufc-kamaru-usman-opinion-ian-machado-garry-welterweight-title-shot\/87618740007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Kamaru Usman shuts down talk of Ian Machado Garry title shot;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" class=\"link \">Kamaru Usman shuts down talk of Ian Machado Garry title shot<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kamaru Usman insists he&#8217;s the most deserving welterweight contender. As the former champion continues to campaign for a&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":148036,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,40142,48142,786,56532,27140,142455,61175,95270,95271,785,64238,85,787],"class_list":["post-330717","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-belal-muhammad","tag-carlos-prates","tag-fighting","tag-ian-machado-garry","tag-islam-makhachev","tag-joaquin-buckley","tag-kamaru-usman","tag-leon-edwards","tag-michael-morales","tag-mma","tag-sean-brady","tag-sports","tag-ufc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330717","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=330717"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/330717\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/148036"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=330717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=330717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=330717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}