Shavkat Rakhmonov's coach goes into viral Ian Machado Garry sparring sessions ahead of UFC 310

UFC 310's co-main event between welterweight contenders Shavkat Rakhmonov and Ian Machado Garry has the MMA world buzzing.

Although it wasn't the original plan for Saturday night, fate brought the undefeated duo of former Kill Cliff FC teammates together after UFC welterweight champion Belal Muhammad's injury withdrawal shook up the year-end schedule. A primary sticking point ahead of UFC 310 has been Rakhmonov and Garry's shared sparring history. Garry released footage from those occasions while lobbying for a Rakhmonov matchup in the past. Rakhmonov responded by telling Uncrowned that he tapped Garry out in those sessions and challenging the Irishman to release the rest of the footage.

Henri Hooft was the head coach of both men at the time — Garry has since switched gyms — and he isn't the biggest fan of taking gym happenings into the public eye.

In this case, he doesn't even consider the viral footage to be sparring.

"People put [cameras] on," Hooft said Wednesday on Uncrowned's "The Ariel Helwani Show." "Sometimes in my gym, even I have to tell these guys, 'Hey, take that off. That is not good footage. You don't do that. You don't need to do that.' But it's training, it's sparring. Shavkat also said the same thing. You can't really go off that. That is just moving around. There wasn't even sparring. It was just like light movement.

"It's not a bad, bad thing, but I prefer people just to keep it to themselves, and if you're smart, you keep the video to yourself and you study on it if you want. That's what I always say to my guys — you can film, but only if it's for your own purpose. If these videos come out — the new generation, they do a lot of stuff for Instagram. Young guys."

The paths to the welterweight division's peak have been distinct for both Rakhmonov and Garry despite their shared success. A true finishing machine through and through, Rakhmonov has stopped all 18 of his opponents without once reaching the judges' scorecards. Garry has also amassed 15 wins and no defeats, but without the same finishing consistency — seven of his victories have come in decisions.

Something has to give at the highest level, which is why the training talk has been a hot topic. No matter the result, Hooft doesn't believe it should be taken seriously.

"They're [such] high-level guys," Hooft said. "Not only these two guys but at least 10 of these high-level guys at the same level. That's high-level sparring, but with a lot of respect. What you just saw in the clip, it's just moving around. And sometimes, someday, one guy gets the better, someday the other.

"I always prefer to see sparring as training, of course. Like, I don't mind as a fighter, I never mind to lose a sparring round to another guy if I train certain kinds of things, maybe defensive stuff — yeah, a guy gets the better hand of me, but I need to train [those holes] on some circumstances.

"You can look at that different ways. There's people that get tapped out in the gym, there's people that get knocked out in the gym. And that's not always a good thing, but again, sparring is sparring. Sparring is mimicking the fight. So yeah, I'm not a big fan of all putting that all out there."

Modern-day technology and social media make it easier than ever for gym leaks to occur, and that isn't always bad in the grand scheme. Hooft actually finds it beneficial, depending on the circumstance. This is the entertainment business, after all, and he's seen it all at this point. Whatever helps create exposure when necessary can work positively — especially if a fighter may be lacking inside the Octagon.

"It's not always the best fighters that get chances," Hooft said. "It's also the people that have a lot of followers and everything. I'm not saying that about Shavkat or Ian, they deserve it. But there's a lot of talented guys that don't get chances just because they don't have enough following or because they won three fights on points. They're not attractive for the fans. But I think that's a little crappy. Everybody puts their life on the line."

There hasn't been much, if any, drama between the talented welterweight contenders outside of the sparring debate.

Generally, a fight between two former teammates may put a coach in a weird spot. Welterweight, in particular, fills out the Kill Cliff FC roster with fighters galore.

But it's nothing new for Hooft. Despite Garry's exit from the gym, there's no bad blood on his end. The circumstances just make for an even better potential showdown.

"It was very, very good," Hooft said of training Garry. "I mean, if you win six fights together and [are a] very young fighter, very talented, a lot of energy — good kid. Yeah, he was really, really good and was very nice to see. All these guys — Jason Jackson, Logan Storley, Robbie Lawler, all these guys in the weight class training with each other — it was a great time and high-level sparring, high-level drills, learning from each other. So I had a really good relationship with him. Corner work was always very good.

"We separated our ways on normal terms — you know, we both go different ways and people probably always try to find a way, why and what and whatever. There's not always drama when people separate. Some people just go their own way for their own good, and it works for him and it works for us. There's nothing personal there. He's a really, really talented guy. I always said that he's championship material for sure, but so is Shavkat, so that's the cool thing about it."