Last weekend’s Studio 540 Challenge provided quite a bit of excitement!

The event of the night saw Gordon Ryan doing his best to achieve leg entanglements on Felipe Pena. Pena was more concerned with passing which he practiced plenty. He tried passing on both sides and with plenty of skill to boot. However there was no dice and the two were duking it out with plenty of back and forts for the duration of first 30 minutes.

However around minute 40 Felipe Pena managed to secure the back of Ryan and sink in an RNC!

Pena went on to challenge Ryan to a gi fight!

Felipe Pena’s coach, multiple-time World Champion Romulo Barral told Flograppling:

“We [Gracie Barra Northridge] would like to make the same challenge. We’d like to put $20,000 and make the fight with the gi [and] submission-only. On our rules. So, I hope Gordon can accept.”

Pena added:

“I am down. I accepted his challenge, so I will be happy too if he accept the challenge with the gi, submission only as well.”

It’s hard to see Ryan accepting. He has an impressive resume in No Gi but has also competed extensively in Gi but without any major titles. Pena is a world and world pro champion who placed second at ADCC 2015.

Ryan addressed the challenge as response to a previous article by BJJEE, and gave a shallow response:

Yes when I decide to compete in the gi I’ll be more than happy to compete against him.
When I plan to compete in the gi. Sure.

Gordon Ryan with around 5 years of training, in the last few months, submitted the gold, silver, and bronze medalists of ADCC (Olympics of submission grappling) Yuri Simoes, Keenan Cornelius, and Rustam Chsiev. All of which are a weight class above his own, Which in ADCC is a big jump (over 20lbs).

20 year old Gordon Ryan came in as a late replacement at this year’s EBI 6 heavyweight open weight invitational and to the surprise of many, won the whole tournament submitting Yuri Simoes in the semi final and Rustam Chsiev in the final. Ryan is a recently promoted black belt under Garry Tonon,  and is part John Danaher’s ‘death squad’.

He has an impressive resume:

• World No-Gi Champion (2015 brown)
• EBI 6 and EBI 8 Champion (2o16 absolute)
• Newaza Challenge Champion (2015)
• Grappling Industries Tournament Champion (2016 absolute)
• Pan American No-Gi Championship 3rd Place (2014 purple)