Garry Tonon recently discussed the moment that he suffered the first knockout loss of his MMA career while going for a leglock, and how it’s affected his approach moving forward. He started out as an elite grappler and has had some epic performances at ADCC, so it was only natural that he was going to use his Jiu-Jitsu skills to great effect once he made the transition to MMA. That’s exactly what he did, rattling off 6 wins to start off his career with ONE Championship and finishing three of those fights by submission. He dominated every single one of those opponents and he looked like he might be able to reach the highest level in the promotion, so they gave him a title-shot.
That’s when things unraveled a little for Garry Tonon, as he tried to hit a leglock on Thanh Le in his title-fight but Le defended and returned fire with several shots that resulted in a knockout loss. It was a moment that many detractors of modern submission grappling will point to, as there has been plenty of criticism over the prevalence of leglocks in the sport. Tonon is a master of leglocks himself, but apparently that experience has given him a reason to change his approach a little:
“It gives hesitation under certain circumstances. Like it definitely adds a certain gravity to being in certain situations in a fight. There’s no question that the next time I’m in a bottom situation in an Ashi Garami that I’m gonna have a little bit more urgency to potentially get back up as opposed to just looking for the finish. It would be hard to take that moment and not get something out of it in that regard.”
Although Tonon does admit he’s going to have a slightly different approach to attacking the legs, it hasn’t scared him away from them entirely. In fact, he’s already bounced back from his loss against Thanh Le by winning his next two fights and he won both of those fights by submission. His most recent fight in particular was a good sign that he’s still happy to attack the legs, as he rolled through for a kneebar from standing to submit Shamil Gasanov. Tonon actually referenced this win when explaining that he won’t let that experience turn him into a completely different fighter:
“I think sometimes you can take a moment like that and catastrophize a little bit, you know? I think you can take a moment like that and say ‘aw man, well I’ll just never go for a leglock again’ but look at my last fight. It depends on the circumstances man, you know? In my last fight I was able to roll into a submission hold that there was no question, there was no way that he was gonna be able to hurt me from that position. It’s just that the approach might be a little different, the conditions might be a little bit different, there might be a little more urgency now when I’m in certain situations because I’ve really felt the danger of being on bottom, looking for a leglock.”
It makes sense too because Garry Tonon has some of the best leg attacks in the sport and if he chose never to go for a leglock again, he’d be taking away one of his greatest weapons. As he explains, there are counters to everything and he still has faith in his area of expertise:
“One of the beauties of being at the point that I’m at in Mixed Martial Arts is that there’s been a lot of people that have come before me to do this, even in the leglocking world, and I have a lot of evidence that this stuff works. I got a lot of evidence from myself but I also have evidence from other people. It’s like yeah, I know that leglocks can be dangerous both for the person I’m applying them to and for me as well. But then it’s a fight, everything’s dangerous. It’s dangerous to just be in there. It’s like saying you can’t throw a left hook because sometimes you get countered with an overhand or something. It becomes silly after a while.”
The full interview with Garry Tonon where he discusses suffering the first knockout loss of his career while attempting a leglock was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of ONE Championship on South China Morning Post:
