Due to the above depicted injury Gordon Ryan will no longer be vying for the Light Heavyweight belt at EBI 9. Gordon’s coach John Danaher announced earlier
Gordon Ryan suffered a nasty cut on the eyelid today during his last day of hard sparring in preparation for EBI 9. It has been tightly stitched and dressed but there is no way he will be able to compete on Sunday. He will be replaced by Garry Tonon. Gordon was already the smallest man on the card and Garry is a weight division below Mr Ryan, so this will be a tough assignment indeed. Mr Tonon was himself cut during training in England, but his cut is much less severe and in a much less sensitive area than Mr Ryan’s. He will be ready to go by Sunday. Both cuts were the result of training with people outside of our gym – there is always a catch here – it’s good to train with unfamiliar partners as this is something you will experience in competition; however, sometimes these strangers bring a spastic and clumsy movement that is hazardous in terms of small and unnecessary injuries like these. Thankfully Gordon Ryan has other big upcoming projects to prepare for as soon as this problem passes, but still, the disappointment is strong. Mr Tonon will commence training as soon as his own cut allows and the show will go on
This is the cut Garry Tonon suffered just days before putting his own participation in the NoGi Worlds in question.
Tonon will be facing up against a number of light heavyweight competitors which all have a good deal of size on him so it’ll definitely be interesting to see how it pans out.
John Danaher is certainly full of praise for his star pupil, Tonon who is always ready to take on a challenge.
Smallest competitor – biggest skill set and heart: Garry Tonon walks around at 167 pounds and could easily make the EBI 145 pound division (he does not, as we like to see Eddie Cummings rule that domain). This Sunday he will take on athletes coming down from up to 230-240 pounds to weigh in at 205 for EBI 9. This might seem like a suicide mission – and for most, it would be. Mr Tonon however, has a long history of going up to fight bigger men. When he was a brown belt he took on Buchecha and Cyborg at ADCC and only lost narrowly by points. He dominated most of the action against Rousimar Palhares is a thrilling draw, despite a colossal size and strength disadvantage. He lost by negative guard pull to Vinny Magalhaes after pushing hard for submissions the whole match. He has beaten by submission, Ralek Gracie and Gilbert Burns despite a big size and strength disadvantage. In all my coaching experience I have not seen a grappling athlete with bigger heart and a stronger desire to go out and compete against anyone, any time, any place. Rest assured, the squad may have had a setback today, but come Sunday we shall come out all guns blazing ?? Tomorrow the senpai and kohai will train and drill and get ready for this new challenge – one which represents the best spirit of jiu jitsu – the belief that with superior technique and strategy, greater size and strength can be controlled and overwhelmed by lesser.
