Gordon Ryan has just stepped up on short notice to replace his younger brother Nicky against Jacob ‘The Hillbilly Hammer’ Couch at the next Who’s Number One event. Couch is one of the world’s most exciting young competitors and a member of Pedigo Submission Fighting, the gym that has taken the world by storm thanks to the success of both their competition team and the Daisy Fresh documentaries. He was originally scheduled to compete against B-Team’s Nicky Ryan but his fellow young star was forced to withdraw from the match just a little over a week before due to a knee injury.
When FloGrappling decided to announce that Nicky Ryan was out of the match, fans were debating who might be competing against Couch in his place. Despite all the speculation, nobody could have predicted that his older brother Gordon would be the one to do it in the end. This makes the main event for March’s Who’s Number One event a curious one indeed as Jacob Couch will be taking on a gigantic challenge, not just because Gordon Ryan is one of the greatest grapplers in the history of the sport, but also because he’ll be experiencing a pretty significant size disadvantage.
Couch was last seen competing against Santeri Lilius at Grapplefest 11 and winning a comfortable unanimous decision, and the last time he competed on the WNO stage was against David Garmo where he locked up a beautiful heelhook finish. Gordon Ryan has been significantly less active however, and he has only competed twice since the beginning of 2021. Both times have been submission victories on the WNO stage against Vagner Rocha most recently and before that, it was against Roberto Jimenez where he was also a late-replacement for his brother Nicky.
The full Who’s Number One event, including Gordon Ryan taking on Jacob Couch, will be available to watch live on March 25th on FloGrappling, click here to subscribe and watch.
