In an undercover Reddit post, one user who claims to have trained with Gordon Ryan in the past revealed and old WhatsApp conversation from 2016. It should be noted that due the the original user wanting to remain anonymous, the source is certainly not 100% reliable, although it would be an odd thing to claim completely out of the blue.
Due to the context of the message, the send time would have been between the dates of April and November 2016.
The image shows Ryans whatsapp account claiming “I think myself or Garry [Tonon] will beat Khabib in a fight”.
For historical context, at this time Khabib was certainly not the force he became in MMA. However, he was on a 23-0 streak overall, with 7 of these wins coming from the UFC. While many people thought that he was certainly a dominant grappler, the quote is fairly crazy, but not as outlandish as saying it in 2023.
Gordon Ryan was no where near his prime in 2016 as a grappler and actually still played second fiddle to Garry Tonon within the Danaher Death Squad at this point. Back in 2016, Garry Tonon was widely regarded as one of the best no gi grapplers in the world, falling short at ADCC, but always putting on entertaining matches. Furthermore, he took a superfight against Rousimar Palhares, where he was still able to put on a technically masterful display despite looking like a boy against the incredible Hulk.
However, in 2023, this quote looks more out of touch than ever. Grappling is still very necessary in MMA, but it doesnt directly translate in to grappling competitions. Furthermore, Khabib would absolutely destroy either of the two in an MMA fight, despite huge weight differences. Tonon has a reasonably solid 8-1 record, however, this is in the less than stellar ONE fighter pool. On the other hand Khabib retired at 29-0, defeating anyone and everyone the UFC put in front of him.
Charles Vieira
Charles Vieira is a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu brown belt. He has travelled the world extensively training on 4 continents.