Ian Machado Garry doubts Conor McGregor will go out like that after UFC 329.
Returning from a five-year long layoff, McGregor (22-7 MMA, 10-5 UFC) blew out his right knee in the first round of his main event fight against Max Holloway (28-9 MMA, 24-9 UFC) last month. He underwent surgery to repair a torn meniscus and ACL.
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Having only gotten to compete for 69 seconds, Machado Garry says McGregor’s comeback was far from fulfilling.
“(The fight against Holloway) was tough to watch,” Machado Garry said in an interview with Betvictor Casino. “It doesn’t matter who it is, any fighter in the world, when you prepare for a fight and you don’t get to fight, it’s not nice. It sucks. I think he’ll 100 percent be back, because I think it’s going to live in his head now that he did all the work to get there and he didn’t get to compete.
“I think he has to close the book on that, if that makes sense. He has to come back for his own mentality. If I put myself in his shoes, that’s what I would feel. I did it all, I did it all right, a freak accident happened in that moment, and the book needs to be closed. He said he’s got one more fight in his contract. He needs to go out with a bang, not like that. That’s how I would do it if I was in his shoes. I wouldn’t want that to be the last fight I had.”
McGregor has every intention of completing the final fight on his UFC contract. The 38-year-old provided a positive update on his surgery on Wednesday.
This article originally appeared on MMA Junkie: Ian Machado Garry: Conor McGregor will ‘100 percent be back’ after tough loss
