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Just before the UFC 303 pre-fight press conference concluded, Ian Machado Garry threw out an inflammatory accusation that he promised would get Michael Page banned from the sport.
While that seems rather unlikely, it didn’t stop Garry from launching into a tirade aimed at the former Bellator fighter after the two exchanged words on stage. Initially, Garry just taunted Page with a threat to reveal some mysterious information, but the veteran fighter and one-time BKFC brawler seemingly had no idea what Garry was talking about.
“I’ve already broke this man’s confidence down so much. He knows, I don’t need to say what I’m talking about,” Garry shouted. “You know exactly what I’m on about. Your self-confidence is f*cked. You know what I’m talking about.
“It will come out. It will come out, kid. But your brain is f*cking scurrying for excuses. Do you want to say it or will I? Tell the people.”
As Page effectively laughed in his face, Garry responded by claiming the veteran striker attempted to pay off somebody in his camp for information ahead of their UFC 303 fight.
There have been dozens of accusations about “moles” infiltrating training camps in MMA over the years, but Garry went one step further by suggesting that Page was willing to pay for that information yet returned with nothing.
“Did you and your team offer thousands of dollars to get information in Chute Boxe from my boys?” Garry said. “Did you send someone a message and offer thousands for information, yet couldn’t infiltrate the camp/ You couldn’t get into [it], the Chute Boxe family is too tight.
“Your little f*cking rat jiu-jitsu coach offered money to one of my Brazilian friends and you got nothing. Saturday night, you’re f*cked.”
Before he was done talking, Garry then suggested that Page and his unnamed coach could get banned from the sport for life if that information was proven true.
“You and your jiu-jitsu coach are getting suspended for life,” Garry said.
That’s a dubious claim at best, that anybody would receive a lifetime ban from the sport, and it prompted a fiery response from Page as the crowd began chanting “MVP.”
“This guy’s hilarious,” Page said. “All I know is the one and only ‘MVP’ is here at the UFC and I’m about to make some noise.”
When Garry kept chirping on the microphone, Page answered back emphatically.
“Shut the f*ck up!” Page shouted.
The faceoff between the welterweights was just as intense a few minutes later, with UFC CEO Dana White keeping an arm between them and eventually breaking them apart before anything got out of hand.
Rising welterweight star Ian Machado Garry grew up a short drive from Dublin, Ireland when Conor McGregor rose from a local promotion champion to superstardom in the UFC. Predictably, Garry was influenced by McGregor’s success and wanted to emulate McGregor’s achievements.
On Saturday, the undefeated Garry (14-0) takes on former Bellator standout Michael “Venom” Page (22-2) on the UFC 303 main card. Leading up to the fight, Page has seized in on Garry’s admiration of McGregor saying he considers “The Future” simply a ‘fake Conor McGregor.’
“Obviously, you can see how much he’s been inspired by Conor McGregor. And I get it. Many fighters away from Ireland have been massively inspired by Conor McGregor. He was there, when he first started to see someone like Conor McGregor blow up and seeing him be the giant figure that he is in MMA now. I understand the inspiration,” Page said during the UFC 303 Media Day.
“Trying to do exactly what he does is what I call fake because your personality may not actually be like that which is why people are not necessarily resonating with you,” Page continued. “Whereas with Conor, you’re trying to play the exact same role. With Conor, people love Conor. He has this massive fanbase. With you, people hate you, and I think it’s because we can all feel when something is not real, when it’s not authentic. I feel it’s not authentic with Garry therefore he’s fake Conor McGregor.”
Related: Paige VanZant tells why she signed with Power Slap
Page may not like Garry’s persona, but he doesn’t take emotion with him inside the octagon. He believes Garry has done ‘really well’ thus far in his career, but made a big mistake accepting the fight with him.
“He’s new and he’s done really, really well. You’ve seen it with so many people, quick rises. I think a lot of the time with quick risers you get quick falls as well,” Page said. “Very confident young man who’s doing really well. Has massive belief in himself and just made one bad decision in accepting the fight with me.”
“I take him seriously. I like to play around and have jokes, but I do take him seriously,” Page continued. “I do respect this talents. I just think I’m better than him.”
Garry will enter the octagon at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas on Saturday ranked seventh in the welterweight division. Page is ranked just inside the Top 15 but has the opportunity to leap ahead of several fights with a win.
Dana White is looking forward to the future of boxing.
UFC Saudi Arabia has come and gone and kickstarted the new partnership between the promotion and the country. Therefore, fight fans can expect bigger and better things from future events overseas.
Before UFC and Saudi Arabia joined forces, Chairman of General Entertainment, Turki Alashikh, started getting into the boxing world, making some of the biggest match ups possible. After putting on their first event together, White has nothing but good things to say about Turki and is excited about boxing’s future with this involvement.
“I like him. The guy has a vision for a sport that is completely f*cked up,” White told The Mac Life. “If you look at what he’s been able to do in a short amount of time, boxing is so broken and so f*cked up that it takes a guy with that kind of money and that kind of power to make these things happen. So, I think it’s gonna be fascinating to see what he accomplishes over the next several years.
“You know me, I don’t kiss anybody’s ass for any f*cking reasons whatsoever,” he continued. “If I didn’t feel that way or if I didn’t have this feeling about him, I would let you know and I would be all out on it, but I like this guy. I respect him. I like what he has already done and I am actually looking forward to seeing what he is gonna do in the future. He is dealing with a sh*t show of unbelievable proportions, and I like the way he’s handling it.”
White has never been shy to express his feelings on boxing and the promoters involved. Oscar De La Hoya might be the most notorious to catch critique from White, but Bob Arum isn’t safe either. Critical of White’s dealings in the past, Arum caught some strays from UFC’s CEO when compared to Saudi’s leading man.
“It’s gonna take a guy like Sheikh Turki to fix it. He’s making the fights that nobody can make, and it was a fun fight. It was a good fight,” White said of boxing and the recent Tyson Fury vs. Oleksandr Usyk match (watch highlights).
“In COVID, Bob Arum comes out and says, ‘This guy, he’s a dumb guy, he’s f*cking this and that and everything else,’ look at how long Arum’s been in the game, right? Guy’s in his f*cking 90s, I respect the fact that he’s still — I mean, that guy flew out to Saudi Arabia, went to England, did all this sh*t, gotta respect that part of his game. But he thinks he’s so f*cking smart. He thinks he’s so f*cking intelligent. He’s literally done nothing. He’s made a living for himself on the boxing game, but at the end of the day, what does he have? He has f*ckin’ nothing. He’s created nothing. Always just stripping money, never invested back into the f*cking sport. You could have f*cking fixed it. You had no f*cking vision for the sport. You had nothing. You’re not as smart as you think you are, Bob Arum.”
Alex Pereira and Jiri Prochazka | Photo by Sarah Stier/Getty Images
The UFC is back in Las Vegas.
This Saturday, the UFC 303 takes place in the fight capital of the world. Originally set to be headlined by Conor McGregor vs. Michael Chandler, when McGregor pulled out due to injury, light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira stepped in on short notice to save the day with a title rematch against Jiri Prochazka. So of course the No Bets Barred Boys are here to break it all down.
Co-hosts Conner Burks and Jed Meshew kick things off with a brief recap of UFC Saudi Arabia before diving into this week’s card. How will the short notice after Pereira and Prochazka for their rematch? Is Diego Lopes ready to make the leap against Brian Ortega? What exactly will Michael “Venom” Page vs. Ian Machado Garry look like?
All this and a lot more are discussed on this week’s episode.
Tune in for episode 93 of No Bets Barred.
New episodes of the No Bets Barred podcast drop every Wednesday and are available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever else you find your favorite podcasts. The latest episode can be heard below.
Dana White was uncertain which of the matchups at UFC 303 may end up stealing the show on Saturday night, so as a result, he’ll hand out two Fight of the Night bonuses.
The UFC CEO decided to toss out an extra $ 100,000 ($ 50,000 to each fighter) after he was asked about the potential difficulty he faced in choosing only one outstanding fight on the card that caps off International Fight Week 2024. As a result, White promised to hand out two Fight of the Night bonuses, which only ups the ante for the athletes competing on the card.
“Yeah, f*ck it, I’ll do it,” White said to the approval of a raucous crowd in Las Vegas.
UFC featherweight Brian Ortega tried to get even more money out of White when he suggested $ 303,000 bonuses — a reference to White opting to hand out historic $ 300,000 bonuses at UFC 300 back in April.
But White’s charity was only going so far.
“Not $ 303,000, but two bonuses,” White said with a laugh.
On the main card alone, the 10 fighters competing at UFC 303 have combined for 11 Fight of the Night bonuses, with Ortega leading the list with five for his UFC career. Every single fighter on the main card has earned at least one performance bonus outside of Michael Page, who only has one UFC bout after spending most of his career in Bellator.
With the extra Fight of the Night bonus being awarded, the main card and preliminary fighters definitely have something to earn come Saturday night.
![[Official] UFC 303 Press Conference Discussion Thread](https://external-preview.redd.it/FW3lMyc0j6e58vBkshfB9diECtzgDT8zUScMCyITPK0.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=4994c02639567d46f624aaa7264557f58c57db28 "[Official] UFC 303 Press Conference Discussion Thread")
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