Anyone excited about Garry Tonon mma debut?

[Evenflow80]

One of the reasons I think Tonon will do well is that he *isn't* really a leg submission specialist. He's definitely fantastic at them, but he's equally good at taking the back and choking, kimuras, and catching guillotines. I would actually be pretty surprised if we saw him leg lock anyone early in his career, I expect he'll attack much more with chokes just because the wrestling heavy MMA grappling metagame opens up a lot more chances to get on someone's neck than to their legs.

I agree, he's dangerous pretty much everywhere. Its still relatively rare to see such a high level grappler enter MMA. For someone who appreciates grappling in MMA, I'm super excited to see him

 

[Evenflow80]

That's true, but luckily for him Garry is a long way from the highest level yet. Though his wrestling is already decent and I'm sure he's working hard to improve it, not being a dummy and having the examples of guys like Maia and Shields to follow.

knowing how to strike is important in MMA, sure, but for the very select few like Tonon, Maia, Sheilds, etc who have exceptional grappling, in their case all their striking needs to be able to do is to help close the distance. That's it.

 

[Uchi Mata]

knowing how to strike is important in MMA, sure, but for the very select few like Tonon, Maia, Sheilds, etc who have exceptional grappling, in their case all their striking needs to be able to do is to help close the distance. That's it.

I don't entirely agree with that. At the highest level you need to be at least dangerous everywhere, because if you allow a good opponent to focus on shutting down only one aspect of your game they can do so. That's what happened to Maia in the Woodley fight: Tyron knew that the only thing he had to worry about was not getting taken down, which made if fairly easy for him to do so. If Maia had committed more to striking and seriously threatened him it would have opened up the TD threat. GSP - Shields was very similar, GSP never let Jake get close to a TD and just beat him up safely on the feet for 5 rounds. Tonon doesn't need to be a slick striker, but he needs to be dangerous enough that top guys can't worry only about his grappling.

 

[kjg1672]

I'm excited about this fight for a number of reasons, the biggest probably being Tonon's athleticism. Tonon strikes me as being on different level athletically than guys like Maia and Shields. I wouldn't expect Tonon's striking to be advanced, but it wouldn't surprise me if his athleticism allowed him to look pretty loose and fluid out there.

 

[ChrmnMa0]

Also, One isn't exactly filled with great wrestlers/grapplers...

 

[kpoz12]

You can watch his fight RIGHT NOW https://twitter.com/ONEChampionship?lang=en

 

[Human Bass]

Well, he lived up to my expectations. He really seems to enjoy ground and pound.

 

[yetanother]

ben askren would disagree

Ben Askren never fought in MMA at the highest levels.
Also Askren has both really good wrestling *and jiu jitsu (he can both ride people and beat them up or pass the guard and mount point jiu jitsu style).

 

[tekkenfan]

Ben Askren never fought in MMA at the highest levels.
Also Askren has both really good wrestling *and jiu jitsu (he can both ride people and beat them up or pass the guard and mount point jiu jitsu style).

ben beat douglas lima who pretty much beat rory recently while rory wass known as one of the top 3 guys in the world ben went through him


tons of top ufc guys train with ben he is the real deal iv seen him in the gym training he dominates middle weights and he could cut to 155 if he truly wanted