Ian Machado Garry says “it’s not an issue” for future fights having so many teammates in the welterweight rankings

Ian Machado Garry doesn’t think having so many teammates in the welterweight rankings will make it challenging for him to get fights.

Garry trains at Kill Cliff FC alongside the likes of Glbert Burns, Shavkat Rakhmonov, and Vicente Luque, as well as Kamaru Usman who trains there part-time. With that, some teammates never want to fight one another, but Garry doesn’t think that will be an issue.

Instead, Ian Machado Garry believes there are enough people at welterweight he can fight without facing his teammates. But, if it comes down to it, he is open to fighting them if need be.

“Nope. There are a lot of people in the top 15 and the top 10 that is not just my teammates, it’s not just people that I’ve trained against,” Ian Machado Garry said to BJPENN.com. “If that’s the case, I wouldn’t fight Wonderboy because I’ve chatted with him and friends with him. If that’s the case, I wouldn’t eventually inevitably, if Leon is still the champion fight Leon because he is a friend of mine and I’ve trained with him. No, it’s not an issue. But, the truth is, I can absolutely try and weave around people that I know and friends of mine if I absolutely want to.”

With Ian Machado Garry hoping to avoid his teammates, he says the plan is to fight Stephen Thompson next time out. He wants that scrap to happen this year and be for five rounds.

After that, Garry says there are plenty of other fighters he can face on the way up to earn a title shot, if he had to face one of his teammates, it isn’t out of the question the Irishman would do it.

Ian Machado Garry is currently 13-0 as a pro and coming off the win over Neil Magny. Prior to that, he scored a first-round TKO over Daniel Rodriguez to become a ranked welterweight.