Another day goes by and this challenge becomes that much closer. The latest on this front is that Matheus Diniz might be in. But there is a catch:
As you can see above, Diniz is game as long as it goes down after NoGi worlds.
But there’s also a trademark Tonon response to one of the response challenges issued yesterday:
Oh and Olympic Silver Medalist Travis Stevens has no qualms about the money aspect of it:
Mansher Khera tried the reasonable route once more shortly after:
Gordon Ryan is a little restless tho, wondering why he can’t get a concrete answer:
Naturally one might ask themselves why Gordon Ryan isn’t more excited and or preparing for NoGi worlds but rumor has it he isn’t eligible to compete.
Young Mr. Ryan has won NoGi Worlds – just last year as a brown belt. He was subsequently promoted by Garry Tonon and Tom DeBlass to black belt ranking being the first ever black belt of Garry Tonon. Gordon Ryan was born on the 8th of July 1995 as per his bjjheroes page. The two met during Garry Tonon being a brown belt and at the time Ryan was a white belt with a couple of stripes. Tonon’s titles would place their meeting sometime in 2011. In short, Ryan’s become a black belt in 5 years and at the time of their meeting he was around 16. Recommended periods spent at a certain belt level are fixed and counted from the day of the registration of the athlete in IBJJF in each belt. Ryan competed in 2014 in purple division and in 2015 in brown division and the minimal time spent at brown is one year. Basically since he went from purple to black in around a year instead of spending at least a year as brown he isn’t eligible for IBJJF competitions at this point.
One might also ask themselves where does the big team rivalry between Renzo Gracie Academy/Danaher Death Squad and Marcelo Garcia Dream Team originated.
While both teams are New York based the rivalry goes much further – back in 2014 Garry Tonon was facing Kit Dale at Metamoris 4. Shortly after the Metamoris took the opportunity to ask the general audience who would they like to see against Tonon next and many responded recommending Dillon Danis.
Tonon disagreed and without much respect at that too – he is quoted saying Danis wasn’t deserving enough of facing him and tried to pawn of Dillon to a then unknown purple belt Gordon Ryan. Naturally Dillon did not take to kindly to this gesture.
Shortly after EBI peremiered but Danis was signed to Metamoris on an exclusive contract. You might remember Tonon making a fuss about being asked to sign exclusively at Metamoris which is why it was a huge surprise to see him compete at Metamoris 6 against the founder. Both athletes went to win the separate events. Tonon got his first EBI belt and Danis defeated UFC’s Joe Lauzon.
Of course 2015 was an ADCC year so they got matched there – there Tonon managed to sub Dillon Danis.
But the story is far from over – Tonon went on to lose twice from Matheus Diniz within a year span in 2015. Once wristlocked and the other time on points.
Matheus Diniz Shows The Wristlock He Used To Submit Garry Tonon
Another aspect of The rivalry? You might remember the Danaher Death Squad taking issue with Mike Davila accepting an invitation to participate in EBI… well shortly after being ousted Davila joined team MG.
To Recap Yesterday:
It hasn’t even been a whole day between Gordon Ryan announcing he has his dream opponents before issuing an official challenge. Young member of the Danaher squad certainly likes to keep busy so he announced he sees himself facing Dillon Danis, Mansher Khera and Matheus Diniz. Oh and you heard it right, he wants to go up against all of them. Here’s the initially issued challenge:
One commenter suggested Mr Ryan fight the double gold from World Masters – Rafael Lovato Jr but Grappling Industries honcho was quick to shut it down with an informative:
“He’s busy till 2nd quarter of 2017. We tried.”
Dillon Danis straight from his MMA coaching fame jumped in and proposed the following:
For a while there it seemed like the Dream Team wasn’t on board with the challenge but many esteemed members of the community seemed excited:
Some questions did arise in the way Gordon Ryan picked his chosen ones:
Mansher Khera‘s initial response was humorous:
but then he went with quite rational and measured:
And we must admit, we’d all be excited to see these two teams face off. But from there the money got sweeter as the investors realized there was true potential there:
Danis vs Tonon certainly seems within the realm of possibility:
Eddie Cummings opted not to weigh in, but he did caption this couple days earlier:
All signs point toward this team challenge being in the works…
