Garry Tonon is known for being quite outspoken. Whether it’s talking about his opponents, strategy or his thoughts about rules he spares no one.
Recently he participated in the new event called Grappling Pro Championship. This type of event aims to bring BJJ closer to MMA. The rules everyone is discussing pertain to 3 things.
GPC includes 3 rounds and additional rules that would make rolling out of bounds penalized. In addition to these two specifics there’s also a third – the grappler who scores last at the finish of each round gets an additional point added to their score.
Here’s what Garry had to say about this ruleset and how he feels these rules should be altered to have a better chance of fulfilling the goal of bringing bjj closer to mma:
“What I believe is that this tournament is more closely related to freestyle wrestling rules. Or perhaps Greco. If they wanted to be closer related to MMA the best they could do is to add a cage. That changes everything, pushouts don’t really relate to ring control because in ring control you deal with wall wrestling in a cage which is like an entirely different sport. ”
Tonon went on to add: “If you really wanted to bring this organization closer to vision you would put it inside of a cage and make it grappling inside of a cage. That’s a little difficult to do, few organizations have done it. But I think it would make it more realistic. “
Grapplers Pro Championship’s New Rules – Game Changer or Bust?
Most notably recent edition of Chael Sonnen’s Submission Underground featured grappling in a cage.
What did this particular ruleset add to Tonon’s game? He claims it’s all in slight strategy alterations.
He went on to discuss his exciting match for 3rd spot (which didn’t even need to take place) with Enrico Cocco. Cocco seemed to conitunally engage and didn’t take his corner’s advice.
“I knew the match with Enrico was gonna be closer to a jiu-jitsu match then the other matches I had (at GPC) because I know he believes in his heart that his jiu-jitsu matches up to mine or anybody’s really. I know he thinks that’s how he could win and that’s… He is a submission grappler, that’s what he tries to do. “
A video posted by Garry Lee Tonon (@garrytonon) on
He went back and worth with the advice given to his corner and engaged. Tonon admires the willingness to engage in a tournament that was largely reliant on points:
“We’re here to find out who is a better grappler not to find out who can score points and then move out of the way. ” Tonon goes on to add ” I am not gonna pretend like I never tried to play the rules (at GPC) either. In certain matches I did that. “
As far as rest of 2016 Garry Tonon says his plans are:
“I should be competing against…. I guess I can’t talk about it yet. There’s supposed to be a match at Polaris. ” He added “I will probably compete at Nogi Worlds the only thing that would stop me is maybe cornering Gordon at EBI. “
In addition to all of this Tonon revealed Calasans wanted 9000$ in cash for the Gordon Ryan fight which is where the negotiations hit a snag.
To hear Garry talk all this and more press play below.
DJ Jackson Defeats Tonon and More To Win Grappling Pro Championship
