{"id":854593,"date":"2026-08-14T04:58:12","date_gmt":"2026-08-14T04:58:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/854593\/"},"modified":"2026-08-14T04:58:12","modified_gmt":"2026-08-14T04:58:12","slug":"ian-garry-believes-ufc-double-champions-are-less-special-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/854593\/","title":{"rendered":"Ian Garry Believes UFC Double Champions Are Less Special Now"},"content":{"rendered":"

No. 2-ranked<\/a> Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Welterweight contender Ian Garry challenges division champion and No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter Islam Makhachev for the 170-pound strap in UFC 330<\/a>\u2019s main event this weekend (Sat., Aug. 15, 2026) inside Xfinity Mobile Arena in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n

Garry has an extremely tough task in front of him<\/a> this weekend, but confidence is not something the Irish fighter lacks. Indeed, he fully believes he will dethrone the Dagestani champion.<\/p>\n

And if he does, do not expect Garry to defend the Welterweight championship two or three times before jumping to Middleweight<\/a> in pursuit of a second belt. Instead, he wants to defend it repeatedly and build the kind of lengthy reign<\/a> enjoyed by UFC\u2019s greatest champions.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy reign starts by proving I\u2019m the best against the guy whom people consider the best right now,\u201d Garry told UFC.com. \u201cAnd then it\u2019s going to be the rightful challenger every single time, consistently over the next decade. I\u2019m 28 years of age; I have a decade of dominance in the sport if I choose to.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to be remembered as one of the greatest of all time, and that means I need to make sure I have a title reign like Demetrious Johnson, Jon Jones and the other greats\u2014that is what I consider to be the greatest: those long, dominant title reigns,\u201d Garry added.<\/p>\n

\u201cDouble champions\u2014they are less important now. They are less special now because people are waiting for the right opportunity,\u201d Garry concluded. \u201cWhat makes me different, or what separates me from these champions, is that I will want to beat one through 15 in the rankings. I want to have a win over every single Welterweight in the Top 15 to prove I\u2019m the best on the planet. If I beat every single one of them, it would be undeniable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Winning belts in two different weight classes remains a significant accomplishment, especially because only 11 UFC fighters have done it<\/a>. However, the \u201cchamp-champ\u201d chase has started to run its course for many.<\/p>\n

So, if that is really the goal, bravo, Garry\u2014\u201cThe Future\u201d really is bright.<\/p>\n

Of course, he first has to get through Makhachev, something no opponent has managed to do since 2015.<\/p>\n

To checkout the latest and greatest UFC 330: \u201cMakhachev vs. Garry\u201d news and notes be sure to hit up our comprehensive event archive right here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"No. 2-ranked Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Welterweight contender Ian Garry challenges division champion and No. 1 pound-for-pound fighter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":854594,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,40762,785,85,358075,1396,179146,14855],"class_list":["post-854593","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-ufc-mma-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-330","tag-ufc-news","tag-ufc-on-paramount","tag-videos"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854593","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=854593"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854593\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/854594"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=854593"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=854593"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=854593"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}