With that, Ian Machado Garry, also an undefeated phenom, threw his name into the hat to take on his former training partner Rakhmonov and fight for the number one spot.

Dana White reacts to the fight between Ian Machado Garry and Shavkat Rakhmonov

Going into the fight, the anticipation between the two 170-pound players was palpable, although they remained respectful from the start.

Rakhmonov began UFC 310 fight week by claiming he submitted Machado Garry during training sessions at Kill Cliff, which the Irishman admitted was true.

Nevertheless, “The Future” and “The Nomad” engaged in a very heated exchange at the ceremonial weigh-ins the day before their fight, which Garry ended by claiming that he would defeat the Kazakh.

The fight played out as a large majority of the fan base expected, with Rakhmonov seemingly having a major fighting advantage over Machado Garry, despite Garry’s ongoing association with players like Charles Oliveira at Chute Box in Brazil.

However, the 27-year-old impressed fans with his defensive wrestling and grappling, as Rakhmonov landed just two of 10 takedown attempts and Machado Garry even came extremely close to securing a rear-naked choke victory at one point.

“The Nomad” then picked up the unanimous decision victory, with all three judges giving him an extremely narrow 48-47 victory.

UFC CEO Dana White admitted that sometimes fights don’t go the way you expect. In this case, however, he wasn’t too surprised at how it turned out because of the risks.

“15-0 and 18-0, that means you have two really great fighters with a lot on the line, a title on the line and you saw a lot of greatness from both guys during this fight,” White admitted this at the post-fight press conference.

Ian Machado Garry contests his decision loss to Shavkat Rakhmonov

Although the UFC boss praised both fighters and was happy with their performances, the Irishman was a little more critical.

After the first loss of his career, Machado Garry admitted that he didn’t feel like he had lost the fight and questioned the judges’ scorecards.

“I am humble in victory and defeat and always have been, and I don’t feel like I lost today. My hand may not have been raised, but I came out and fought a giant, I came out and fought the bogeyman and I showed he was a damn human being,” Garry began to explain in his post-fight press conference .

“I went out on three weeks’ notice and saved this event, I saved this card against the scariest man in the division, and I went out there and stopped almost everything… I showed that I can compete with the best in the division can compete.” and I proved tonight that I can absolutely be a champion.

“He won on opinion and that’s fine, I can live with that and I’m very happy with my performance tonight,” the Irishman continued.

The co-main event isn’t the only fight judged controversial on the scorecards, as the heavyweight bout between Ciryl Gane and Alexander Volkov resulted in Dana White having a conversation with the commissioners.

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