Garry Tonon is known as one of the most exciting BJJ practitioners ever. Not only is his style great to watch, he’s also pretty damn good as well. In a press conference for his upcoming ONE FC MMA fight on Friday, Tonon received a curveball question from one reporter about his chances against Khabib in a BJJ match. It should be noted, that Tonon was never saying that he would beat Khabib in an MMA match, nor was he claiming he could beat him in a wrestling match either. However, in a pure BJJ match – Tonon fancies his chances, saying “
“I think if we ever had a pure grappling match, I’d pretty handily submit Khabib. The same way if I had a pure wrestling match against somebody who is an extremely dominant wrestler. More than likely, they would beat me. But it would still be a fun, cool experience either way.”
“I don’t see how anybody could debate that. People will because they’re uneducated about martial arts. A pure grappling match, it’s something that I’ve been doing my whole life. He’s been focused on MMA his whole life. He has somewhat of an edge there.”
“In pure jiu-jitsu, it’s hard to believe that he’d be able to do anything other than maybe edge out a draw or something, depending on the ruleset. If it was submission only and there was no ref’s decision. Maybe he could not get submitted. That would be the best hope that he would possibly have. I think it would be a very dominant performance on my part if I ever fought Khabib in a jiu-jitsu or submission grappling contest.”
With this said, it would be quite a spectacle if this bout did happen at some point. Although Khabib has retired from MMA, he has always been a competitor with other martial arts such as Sambo and even in BJJ on occasion. This means this match is certainly possible, but is probably unlikely due to Khabib looking towards more of a coaching role in the near future. As grappling fans though, we can definitely hope it happens!
