Gordon Ryan recently broke down the grappling skills of Jon Jones and Tom Aspinall, ahead of a potential blockbuster fight between the two men. They are both at the very top of the UFC heavyweight division right now, with Jones as the reigning champion and Aspinall as the interim champion. A title-unification fight is always huge business in MMA, but there haven’t been many that have been as widely-demanded as this one. Jones is a legendary figure in the sport and a two-weight champion but he’s only managed a single title-defense in his two years with the heavyweight belt, while Aspinall has emerged as a deserving challenger.
So much so, that Aspinall was given the chance to fight for an interim title in Jones’ absence. Not only did he win that belt but he has also defended it by avenging the only loss of his UFC career. Although nothing is set in stone yet, a meeting with Jones seems inevitable at this point and Gordon Ryan gave his take on how Aspinall stacks up in the grappling department:
“He’s definitely got good takedowns, he’s got decent Jiu-Jitsu. The one point I saw of him losing, he actually got heel hooked and the heel hook wasn’t particularly tight. That was a long time ago and Tom obviously has gotten a lot better since then, but the one time I did see him actually lose a fight was to a heel hook and it wasn’t a particularly tight heel hook. So grappling is definitely a situation where I think that we can win the exchanges, especially because Jon (Jones) already has a grappling background.”
Ryan has actually spent a lot of time training with Jones recently, so he knows first-hand just how good his grappling is. He also spoke about Jones’ grappling strengths too:
“He’s very good at putting guys down, very good at mixing everything up, very good at holding guys down. So I think that grappling is definitely a place where we can win the exchanges, but I think that Tom’s grappling is up there with the rest of the guys.”
The full interview with Gordon Ryan where he talks about the grappling skills that Jon Jones and Tom Aspinall have was uploaded to his official YouTube channel:
