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Chael Sonnen On What Gordon Ryan’s Victory Over Bo Nickal Means For Grappling

Chael Sonnen On What Gordon Ryan’s Victory Over Bo Nickal Means For Grappling

Wrestling vs Jiu-Jitsu is very popular these days. Yesterday, the world’s best No Gi grappler Gordon Ryan faced Wrestling world champion Bo Nickal in a modified rules grappling match where leglocks were not allowed. Nickal played it safe and only had one big suplex, but Ryan was able to get a triangle-armbar victory in the last minutes of the match…

Chael Sonnen was initially very critical of the match up saying that the modified rules was one of the reasons why Grappling would never go mainstream:

Chael Sonnen: ‘This is why Grappling Will Never be on ESPN’

 

Gordon Ryan shared his thoughts on social media:

After finishing one of the most fun matches of my life here are my thoughts. First of all, stalling calls were not as strict as id hoped, ibjjf rules state that if you leave the mat in a secure position that you start in the same position in the middle of the mat, i had 3 or 4 cross ashi entrances where he dragged me out of bounds and we were started on the feet again which was not something i was expecting and kept the match standing far longer than i had expected.
Overall i scored 3 takedowns with kani basami and he scored 1 with a huge back arch which finally got the match down to the ground after around 13 minutes. After being on the ground for roughly 1 minute i was able to enter into shoulder crunch sumi gaeshi. As he defended i moved into sankaku (triangle) and he tried his best to pull out. Similar to my match with josh barnett i played the dilemma between juji gatame (arm bar) and sankaku (triangle). As he tried to pull out of the triangle before my legs were locked i threatened juji which forced him to pressure back into the triangle to avoid arm extension. Once the triangle was locked he tried 1 last slam and ended up tapping.

I want to give a huge shoutout to Mr. @nobickal for stepping out his comfort zone on short notice (even though we mostly wrestled 😂) and coming into a ruleset which favors bjj. I want to make sure to return the favor in doing a mostly wrestling match in which no guard play is allowed. I have more respect for wrestling than anyone and it is a fine and very effective sport… but all you wrestling fan boys… dont call me a bjj guy. im different. I went 3-1 for takedowns with a d1 all American today and finished him in under 2 minutes on the ground. Im the f*cking GOAT and dont you f*cking forget it. @pat_downey im coming to drag your hillbilly a*s all over the mat in 3 different rulesets in 1 day. Im the future of bjj, and the future of “scrimmage” wrestling.

We changed the sport through the use of leg locks and now we are gonna change the sport through scrimmage wrestling. Im the future.
ps- i called a strangle and got a strangle

Sonnen shared his thoughts and he seems to have changed his mind about the match up: