Gordon Ryan is preparing himself bigtime for the one hour long submission only match against Felipe Pena.
Pena is a well respected competitor on the IBJJF circuit while Ryan isn’t quite eligable to compete on the black belt level. He disscussed this and more in his interview with jiu jitsu times saying:
“If I could change some rules in the IBJJF, I would allow all submissions both gi and no-gi from purple belt up. I would also make white belt matches six minutes, blue belt matches seven minutes, purple belt matches eight minutes, brown belt matches 10 minutes, and black belt matches 15 minutes. I prefer longer matches for black belts, but with a tournament this size, longer than 15 minutes isn’t realistic. There are so many matches in a day!”
Of course Ryan is all about the social media and grabbing attention in his flamboyant way.
Just earlier today him and John Danaher staged a breakup between Tom DeBlass and Garry Tonon – all for the carefully curated audience!
John Danaher And Gordon Ryan Stage Tonon & Tom DeBlass Breakup Hoax
But Ryan is determined to tip toe a fine line between good taste and disrespect:
“I think you can toe the line between talking trash and being respectful. There’s a difference between marketing yourself and being an asshole. For example, if someone attacks me online, I’ll tell them I’ll hold them down and hump their face. But when you meet me in public and are respectful, I’m always very nice, always smiling, and I always make time for fans. No matter how many people want to take pictures or ask questions, I always make time. After Polaris, Garry [Tonon] and I spent over an hour taking pictures. Also if you haven’t noticed, I talk a lot of shit before my matches (which I do believe I’m better than anyone in the world under a no-gi sub-only format), but after my matches, I always shake hands and thank my opponents. After the match, I don’t publicly talk shit about them anymore.”
