Six American fighters will compete at ‘Freedom 250’ but Steve Garcia has some concerns concerning the matchups.
It looked like Justin Gaethje wouldn’t be on the UFC White House card just two days before the official announcement got here on Saturday night.
While it made a whole lot of sense to have an American champion top the bill, many, including Arman Tsarukyan, don’t rate Gaethje’s probabilities of winning very highly.
Garcia, who only knew that he was definitely fighting on June 14 when the fans did, believes the event usually could possibly be a really tough night for the athletes representing the celebs and stripes.
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Steve Garcia doesn’t like that a number of the American fighters are the B-side of their UFC White House matchups
It seems clear that Dana White’s UFC White House card will see 4 of the six American fighters in motion enter the Octagon as underdogs.
There’s just one fight that’s guaranteed to finish with a win for the house representatives, with Bo Nickal claiming that Colby Covington turned a matchup down before he was paired with Kyle Daukaus.
Steve Garcia, who looks to be opening the cardboard against Diego Lopes, said that the chances being against him and his fellow Americans did cross his mind when the six-fight bill was revealed.
“I feel like majority of those bouts, man, we could be the B-side,” he told MMA Junkie. “Obviously, I’m #9, Diego’s #2. Topuria’s the undisputed, Gaethje’s the interim. Sean O’Malley, yeah, he’s up there but even that one, I used to be type of like slightly nervous because [Aiemann] Zahabi’s been doing rather well…
“So there’s a whole lot of us which can be type of like right in between being the B-side and I used to be like, I don’t like that and I got to exit and I got to represent our country.”
Had the UFC put a fight that fans have been calling for together, O’Malley vs Cory Sandhagen, that will have guaranteed one other American victory.
The opposite matchup featuring a fighter who will definitely walk out with the celebs and stripes is Michael Chandler vs Mauricio Ruffy, however it’s hard to assume ‘Iron’, who hasn’t won since 2022, being a favourite.
Ariel Helwani did report on Monday that a seventh fight could still be added to the line-up, with Gable Steveson’s UFC debut being a giant omission from June 14 despite it being spoken about.
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