Gordon Ryan is not known for keeping quiet and the elite competitor has just confirmed that he believes that he can beat Khabib Nurmagomedov and Khamzat Chimaev in grappling matches. This shouldn’t be all that surprising of course, given the fact that his training partner Garry Tonon has also claimed that he would be capable of submitting Nurmagomedov in a grappling match in the past as well. Not only has Ryan managed to defeat Tonon in competition back at ADCC 2019 but he’s also pretty much universally regarded as the greatest no gi grappler on the planet right now, with many claiming that he is actually the greatest in the history of the sport too.
His most recent claims started when a fan decided to comment on a post to Ryan’s official Instagram account and ask him how he thought he would fare against one of the most recent MMA success-stories, Khamzat Chimaev. Ryan then decided to respond and explain why he was confident he would win a match between the two:
“Generalist(s) usually won’t beat specialists in their domain. Generalists never beat the absolute best specialists. A submission grappling match wouldn’t be competitive, objectively.”
His logic is sound of course, and it’s bolstered by the fact that Khamzat Chimaev was only recently promoted to purple belt in BJJ. That’s not the full story of course, as Chimaev has proven himself to have fantastic wrestling for MMA and has even managed to defeat Jack Hermansson in a freestyle wrestling match. The subject quickly turned to Khabib Nurmagomedov as more fans started to engage and Gordon Ryan even decided to respond to this too:
“Khabib is a generalist. These are very silly questions lol. No one who specializes in jiu jitsu can beat me. Why would an MMA fighter be able to?”
Oh man, that’s a match I want to see!
Ryan at 249 pounds wanting to take on 170 pounders sounds right just to clout chase. I bet Tyson would put a hurting on him mark of the Queensbury boxing rules. Unreal this guy.
Ryan walks around and competes closer to 220 pounds, not 249. In any case, he wasn’t randomly talking crap about some smaller guys to chase clout. He was asked direct questions by a third party and answered in a relatively objective, level-headed manner. What’s the issue?
Maybe bother to read the article instead of making petty drive-by posts next time.