The UFC's newest Irish star Ian Garry will make his UFC debut with MMA royalty in his corner after splitting from coach Chris Fields and Team KF earlier this year.
Garry is one of the top prospects on the European MMA scene, and was immediately snapped up by the UFC after his dominant Cage Warriors welterweight title win over Jack Grant earlier this year.
And after a nasty split with head coach Fields and his previous team, Garry has moved to America where he is working at the renowned Sanford MMA, home of a number of world champions.
He has confirmed to Mirror Fighting that he, having been forced to fight with a makeshift corner made up solely of pal and fighter Paul Hughes in his last bout, he will have the cream of the crop this time around.
"Henri Hooft, Greg Jones and Jason Strout will be in my corner," he said during an exclusive chat.
"The three Stanford boys, we've three guys out this weekend; Michael Chandler, Phil Hawes and myself, so we're going to have a good weekend."
Hooft is MMA royalty after turning to coaching from his kickboxing career, and coaching the likes of Kamaru Usman, Luke Rockhold and Rashad Evans to world titles.
Jones is considered one of the greatest collegiate wrestlers in American history, while Strout is a renowned kickboxer and boxer with decades of experience as a coach and a fighter.
Garry believes that with this team in place, he will stop his debut opponent within a round in front of the Madison Square Garden crowd.
And he insists that he has no interest in slamming his former team, admitting that they played a large part in his rise to the top of the regional scene.
"I don't want to badmouth anyone and I don't want anyone ever saying 'he said this about him' or whatever, I don't want to speak ill of people that I've known for years.
"I had a good relationship with these people and I don't want to speak about it, that's it."
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The split came just days out from his fight with Grant for the world title, with Team KF later claiming that the split was due to a change in management that rendered him "uncoachable".
A lot of his behind-the-scenes management is handled by his fiancee and TV host Layla Anna-Lee, who insists that her emergence as a key player in front of the camera on Garry's team was "not by choice.
"It was all a bit strange," she explained. "It makes sense to collaborate a bit because I have a lot of followers but they're different demographics.
"I would try to send stuff his way and build up his fights but then I would hear people asking questions about me and I kind of prefer pointing the camera at him."
Garry will base his future camps in America, but plans to return home to Ireland for the first time since signing with the UFC after facing Williams.
