Ian Garry flew to Georgia. Not the state, the country — home of Nox, khinkali, and apparently the only wrestlers on Earth who can prepare an Irishman to take down a Dagestani champion.

The trip was deliberate. Garry had telegraphed it publicly, saying before his UFC Qatar win that if he was fighting Islam Makhachev, Georgia was where he needed to be. So when the fight rumors picked up steam (reports linking the two for a welterweight title defense sometime in mid-2026), Garry made good on his word. He arrived in Tbilisi, watched rooms full of 6-year-olds drilling level changes, and told a camera, "This is gonna be good."

Makhachev heard about it and shrugged.

"In Georgia, he'll probably improve in some areas," the champion said in a translated interview with Ushatayka in February. Then the other shoe: "But I've been wrestling my whole life, not just for two to three months."

The kill shot came with a case study. "Throughout my recent fights, someone brings someone into their camps. They bring in some wrestlers or whatever. Oliveira brought in some guy from the Iranian national team. Zero effect. Don't waste your time."

For the record, Charles Oliveira is a 10-time UFC submission of the night winner, a lightweight champion, and arguably the most dangerous ground fighter Makhachev has faced. He still got controlled for three rounds. Makhachev's point isn't subtle: wrestling credentials don't transfer to wrestling defense against Khabib's training partner.

What Makhachev is actually saying

He's not wrong on the underlying principle. Wrestling isn't a technique — it's a movement language. Base, balance, hip position, feel for weight distribution: these things get trained into the body over years of repetition. A two-month crash course in Georgian-style wrestling will teach Garry some entries. It won't rewire his base or make scrambles feel natural, and it definitely won't save him when Makhachev chains a failed takedown into a back take before Garry's brain has processed the first motion.

This is the real substance of Makhachev's critique. He's not simply dismissing Garry outright or claiming the Irish fighter can't improve at all. Rather, he's articulating something that combat sports coaches have known for decades: muscle memory in grappling requires foundational work that can't be compressed into a sprint. When you've been wrestling since childhood — drilling escapes, balance work, and the intuitive understanding of how to distribute your weight across seven or eight thousand repetitions — your nervous system has internalized patterns that become automatic. A visiting wrestler, no matter how skilled, arriving for a concentrated camp faces a different problem than someone who grew up making these movements.

The issue isn't just knowledge. Garry can learn the theoretical framework of Georgian wrestling in two months. He can understand angle principles, leg positioning, and the sequencing of entries. But applying that knowledge under duress — when Makhachev is actually pulling him downward with the force of a 155-pound man trained since age five — is a different animal entirely. There's a gap between knowing what to do and your body responding instinctively when adrenaline spikes and someone is attempting to place you on your back.

Makhachev's example of Oliveira is strategically chosen. Oliveira isn't some grappling novice who needed a wrestler brought in to fix a fundamental hole. He's one of the most accomplished submission artists in UFC history. He has legitimate wrestling experience himself. Yet when Makhachev controlled him for three rounds, all of that training and all of those credentials didn't prevent what happened. The lesson Makhachev draws is clear: even established fighters with real wrestling backgrounds can find themselves outmatched when facing someone whose entire athletic foundation is built on wrestling from early childhood.

Garry knows this. He said as much when he walked into the gym and watched the kids drill. "I told you before the fight — if I'm fighting Islam, this is the place I need to come and get people who have trained for years."

He's not trying to out-wrestle Makhachev. He wants better wrestling awareness — the difference between getting dumped on the first exchange and surviving long enough to work back to his feet, where he's actually dangerous. It's a narrower ask. Makhachev's blanket dismissal ignores that part. This distinction matters because it reframes the entire purpose of the camp. Garry isn't expecting to become a elite wrestler. He's seeking tactical knowledge — specific counters to the southpaw wrestling style that Makhachev favors, footwork adjustments, and sequence-breaking awareness that might buy him an extra few seconds of positioning.

The Oliveira comparison doesn't hold up cleanly either. Oliveira's wrestling camp was reactive, a late-camp patch on a known hole. Garry's is proactive and aimed specifically at southpaw Dagestani-style wrestling — because that's exactly what Makhachev does. Different problem, different fix. When you're trying to defend against a particular opponent's strengths rather than building a foundational skill set, the timeline and focus change entirely. Garry isn't trying to become a generalist wrestler. He's essentially studying film with living opponents who wrestle the way Makhachev does.

The broader context of camp training

There's also a legitimate counterpoint to Makhachev's skepticism: short-term training camps have actually worked in mixed martial arts when structured specifically. Anderson Silva brought in wrestlers late in his career and adjusted. Henry Cejudo trained wrestling camps for specific opponents. The difference is intentionality. If Garry arrives with a detailed game plan — "I need to understand how Makhachev enters from southpaw" and "I need to know what happens when I stuff the first takedown" — the camp serves a diagnostic function more than a skill-building one. He's not trying to rewire his nervous system. He's trying to see the puzzle from another angle, with people who have pieces of the solution.

Makhachev's dismissal assumes the camp will be generic. But Georgian wrestling camps for fighting Islam Makhachev, specifically? That's a narrower proposition. It's not "let me learn wrestling." It's "let me understand this very particular wrestling." The time value proposition changes when you're studying a specific opponent rather than learning a sport from scratch.

The AliExpress line

Makhachev called Garry "AliExpress McGregor." That's the kind of line you write down.

The question was whether a Garry fight could revive the Ireland vs. Dagestan angle from the McGregor-Khabib era. Makhachev wasn't interested in the storyline. His answer: Garry is a knockoff. "Like they say: from AliExpress."

Funny line. Probably accurate about mainstream star power, too. Garry hasn't transcended MMA the way McGregor did. He doesn't move international markets on his name alone. He's not a mainstream celebrity with crossover appeal. But it misses why this fight is worth watching on a competitive level. Garry is 14-0 in the UFC. He won't move millions of pay-per-view buys on his name alone, but he's a real threat on the feet — which happens to be the one area Makhachev has shown vulnerability.

Poirier clipped him clean and spent half a round pushing him around with strikes. McGregor nearly ended him in round one of their bout before getting submitted. Garry throws cleaner combinations than most welterweights and landed 60% of his significant strikes in his last fight. If this one stays standing, he has a legitimate shot. The wrestling camp isn't about becoming a wrestler. It's about surviving long enough for that shot to land. It's risk management — reducing the probability of eating a takedown in round one so that he still has options later in the fight.

Who actually gives Makhachev problems

The fighters who push Makhachev hardest aren't the pure strikers — they're the ones who can weather the early grappling pressure. Volkanovski is a trained wrestler who almost finished Makhachev in their first fight before getting submitted in the second. Poirier has solid wrestling credentials and pushed him harder than most welterweights Makhachev has faced. The fighters who crumble early are usually the ones whose takedown defense is "hope he misses."

Garry's camp isn't closing the gap between his wrestling and Makhachev's. But it might turn him from someone who gets dumped on the first shot into someone who forces two or three exchanges before going down — and that changes what the whole fight looks like. Forcing Makhachev to work for three takedowns instead of one means more energy spent, more chances for Garry to land from the bottom, more opportunities to scramble back to the feet. It's not about winning the wrestling exchange. It's about surviving it.

Makhachev's confidence is earned. He's defended the lightweight title multiple times, moved to welterweight, and hasn't been seriously threatened in years. His skepticism about short training camps is backed by sixteen straight wins and a wrestling pedigree that started before Garry was competing in anything. When he says short-term camps don't work, he's speaking from a position of dominance. He's the one who has benefited from his wrestling foundation repeatedly. He's seen other fighters try to bridge the gap and fail.

But "I've been doing this longer" is also what every dominant champion says right before someone puts together a smart game plan and actually lands it. Khabib said versions of this before McGregor hurt him in round one. Adesanya said similar things before losing to Sean Strickland. Champions tend to be confident until they're not. Makhachev's record suggests his confidence is warranted. But records are written one fight at a time.

Probably right that two months in Georgia won't be enough to close a lifetime of wrestling deficit. Might be wrong about whether it matters. Garry will find out when they step into the cage. The wrestling kids in Tbilisi will have been watching.

This post was generated by AI. Sources are linked below. Follow @bjj-problems on YouTube for the weekly video digest.

Sources

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