Ian Machado Garry is doing everything in his power to secure a welterweight showdown with Colby Covington.
The Irishman, 7-0 in his young UFC career to date (14-0 overall), has made no bones of the fact that the former three-time 170-pound title challenger is his next target in the Octagon as he continues his ascent up the rankings towards title contention — and amid a back-and-forth mainly played out on social media to this point, Machado Garry says that Covington is dragging his heels about agreeing the matchup.
“I just want to let everyone know, I have agreed to fight Colby Covington,” Machado Garry said in a video posted to Instagram on Tuesday.
However, he added: “There’s a date in place — Colby still hasn’t signed the contract.”
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Covington, who was defeated by welterweight champion Leon Edwards in his most recent fight late last year, has previously intimated that he would be open to a fight with the former Cage Warriors champion — but in a social media video, he said that this was dependent on Machado Garry agreeing to three stipulations (turning on comments on his Instagram page, and another two involving his wife).
Machado Garry said earlier this year that the hypothetical fight would provide him with an opportunity to rid the UFC of the brash Covington.
“[I know] that even if it was the best Colby Covington we ever seen, he would never stand a chance against me. No matter how good Colby Covington ever could be or would be, he would never be able to beat me. I’m too elite. I’m too fast. I’m too technically brilliant. He just doesn’t stand a chance,” he told MMA Fighting.
“I don’t think the guy deserves any respect in the world, to be honest with you. The sh*t he talks. I’ll step into that Octagon, and I’ll retire him. That’s my goal. My whole goal to when I fight Colby Covington is that he never puts on MMA gloves ever again.”
