Analysis: Shavkat Rakhmonov dominated Garry in clinch, middle range despite kicks deficit

A detailed breakdown of Shavkat Rakhmonov's performance against Ian Garry highlights several strengths. Rakhmonov showed significant progress at middle range compared to his fight with Geoff Neal, regularly landing strong single strikes including jabs, overhand rights, left hooks, and spinning backfists. He dominated the clinch for the first four rounds, taking Garry's back and maintaining control with deep underhooks. Rakhmonov became the first UFC fighter to take Garry down in the center of the octagon, accomplishing this twice and landing ground strikes from mount. The analyst noted Rakhmonov's high-quality control throughout the fight except in round five. However, concerns were raised about his limited activity at long range, where he threw very few kicks across four of five rounds, allowing Garry to accumulate significant points with leg kicks. Despite this, the analyst scored the middle and close-range exchanges decisively for Rakhmonov.