Watch Garry Tonon's MMA Debut LIVE RIGHT NOW

[Uchi Mata]

His defensive boxing looked decent, he also looked very mobile. He was awkward in southpaw though, as soon as he switched stance he stiffened up. His head movement was fine, except he was moving too much. The perfect slip would have the glove brush your face, he was trying to make it miss by a mile, but the principle was there.
He was swinging and missing a lot, it looks aggressive, but it wastes energy, left him off balance for counters and shouldn’t be scored highly by judges. His kicks were wild and need a lot of work.
It was still an impressive performance for someone with not a lot of striking experience. I suspect his opponent was cherry picked, but that’s understandable. I also suspect that Tonon ignored some easy submissions to make sure he finished via strikes

I agree with this. But defense is usually the last thing to come, certainly the last thing to get efficient, it takes a lot of experience to know how little you have to move to make someone miss.

As I said in another comment, I thought he was actually moving way too much, much of it not doing a whole lot, but again for a newer guy that's not surprising as efficiency in footwork takes almost as long as efficiency in defense (and of course the two are closely connected).

I was pretty impressed by his balance and coordination though. He's definitely got the athleticism to pick up striking really fast, and he seems to have some good pop in his hands. It was a good first matchup because a better opponent might have hurt him when he was switching stances randomly or throwing himself off balance with some of those strikes, but I'm sure he'll keep cleaning all that up as he proceeds with his career. I saw some video of him hitting pads and his form on everything looks really good so I'd say he's well coached just not long enough into it to carry all that over into the cage yet. Pretty promising first performance though.

 

[Azam]

I had a watch of the fight out of curiosity.

I think his performance was good but his opponent didn't look particularly good (as far as the striking goes). I think he may have been more hesitant to throw because of Tonon's grappling ability.

I think the biggest pro for him was that his athleticism seems to translate to striking - which is a good thing. He was pretty relaxed as well which is always a good sign.

As far as actual striking technique/ability - I thought he needed significant improvement.

His head movements were way too big like @NAKMUAY18 said he was trying to make strikes miss by a mile but in the process he was opening himself up a lot. The principles are there but that's a very bad habit to have and habits are incredibly hard to break when striking is concerned. It was constant wide movements especially to his right side. That's something that an average striker will pick up on very quickly. I know what I'd do if I saw someone keep doing that.

His kicks needed a lot of work. There wasn't any real leverage too them except one decent roundhouse he threw.

I think the biggest issue I saw was that - his striking wasn't really that well thought out. He was just throwing in reaction to whatever his opponent was doing. There were no setups, no feints, no drawing, no jabs to measure range or put together shots - no real reading what his opponent was doing - more just reacting to whatever was in front of him. So for a while until he scored the take down - he was being led by his opponent in striking exchanges and didn't really land anything significant. The takedown was the first instance where he actually led the exchange & he continued this before & after the knock down - that was literally the first instance where he led and his opponent was reacting to him (instead of the other way round for most of the fight).

I also think his positional awareness was off. He was leaning/leaping in at very poor angles to get a shots off - instead of making his way there with his feet first. His positional awareness was so off that in multiple instances he cut off his own angles of attack and restricted the tools he could use (moved in sideways during attacks and left only his lead hand in a position to be able to strike - he cancelled out his own rear hand - multiple times). There were times as well he cut off his own peripheral view with his poor positional awareness - and literally couldn't see some shots coming & froze up - or he walked into low kicks or in some instances was almost square on (he caught whilst being square on but got away with it).

I was impressed by his grit to fight. That's a good sign. I think it's too early to decide how good he can be. It depends on how well he can progress and whether he can rectify his striking faults before they set in & become habit and how well he can progress with the striking & putting both things together. If you watched this fight you'll notice his striking & grappling was very much separate - he had no lead ins.

 

[BJJ_Rage]

Than Rafael Dos Anjos, who was already LW champ? And is fighting shortly for the interim WW belt? If Garry has a career half as successful as RDA he'll have done way better than most BJJ guys.

I meant when rafael started, sorry.

 

[BJJ_Rage]

I had a watch of the fight out of curiosity.

I think his performance was good but his opponent didn't look particularly good (as far as the striking goes). I think he may have been more hesitant to throw because of Tonon's grappling ability.

I think the biggest pro for him was that his athleticism seems to translate to striking - which is a good thing. He was pretty relaxed as well which is always a good sign.

As far as actual striking technique/ability - I thought he needed significant improvement.

His head movements were way too big like @NAKMUAY18 said he was trying to make strikes miss by a mile but in the process he was opening himself up a lot. The principles are there but that's a very bad habit to have and habits are incredibly hard to break when striking is concerned. It was constant wide movements especially to his right side. That's something that an average striker will pick up on very quickly. I know what I'd do if I saw someone keep doing that.

His kicks needed a lot of work. There wasn't any real leverage too them except one decent roundhouse he threw.

I think the biggest issue I saw was that - his striking wasn't really that well thought out. He was just throwing in reaction to whatever his opponent was doing. There were no setups, no feints, no drawing, no jabs to measure range or put together shots - no real reading what his opponent was doing - more just reacting to whatever was in front of him. So for a while until he scored the take down - he was being led by his opponent in striking exchanges and didn't really land anything significant. The takedown was the first instance where he actually led the exchange & he continued this before & after the knock down - that was literally the first instance where he led and his opponent was reacting to him (instead of the other way round for most of the fight).

I also think his positional awareness was off. He was leaning/leaping in at very poor angles to get a shots off - instead of making his way there with his feet first. His positional awareness was so off that in multiple instances he cut off his own angles of attack and restricted the tools he could use (moved in sideways during attacks and left only his lead hand in a position to be able to strike - he cancelled out his own rear hand - multiple times). There were times as well he cut off his own peripheral view with his poor positional awareness - and literally couldn't see some shots coming & froze up - or he walked into low kicks or in some instances was almost square on (he caught whilst being square on but got away with it).

I was impressed by his grit to fight. That's a good sign. I think it's too early to decide how good he can be. It depends on how well he can progress and whether he can rectify his striking faults before they set in & become habit and how well he can progress with the striking & putting both things together. If you watched this fight you'll notice his striking & grappling was very much separate - he had no lead ins.

its the same head movement tj and cruz use A LOT. I know jack shit about striking too, but it seemed he was just trying not to be a sitting duck. TJ and cruz do the same kind of head movement, and they are pretty hard to hit.

 

[Azam]

its the same head movement tj and cruz use A LOT. I know jack shit about striking too, but it seemed he was just trying not to be a sitting duck. TJ and cruz do the same kind of head movement, and they are pretty hard to hit.

TJ's head movement isn't that big & nowhere near as consistent (most of the time they are small movements). Cruz's is but he's mixing it up - sometimes the movements are big & sometimes they are small. Plus he's very smart because those movements only occur if he's in punching range (where it's safe) or if his opponent is throwing punches at him & he's moving out of range. He's still susceptible though to it - just less so.

He also has been fortunate that he hasn't really encountered any solid kickers apart from maybe TJ.

 

[trustdoesntrust]

I think Tonon is in many ways a much better athlete than Roger. Roger has great attributes for BJJ (he's long and has fantastic isometric strength), but he's not very explosive, doesn't seem to have especially good balance, and was never very light on his feet. And he had really, really, really slow hands without the strong sense of timing you need if you're slow handed (ala Nate Diaz).

I was a little bothered by Tonon's constant stance switching. I know he trains with Dillashaw, don't know if he trains with Bang as well, but he's definitely messing around with some of that similar stance switching, high kicking business. I don't have a problem with that style per se but it's not one that I think most beginners are going to be able to make work right off the bat, much less deal with the downsides in terms of easily getting out of position if you're not super careful when and how you switch leads. His opponent obviously couldn't take advantage of it, but if Tonon had taken one clean shot to the jaw while he was halfway between stances that could easily have been the end of it. The openings were there.

Roger seemed like he was perpetually trying to figure out how to use his length in his fights, such that it was easy to imagine countless frustrating sparring sessions where Renzo et. al was trying to teach him how to circle out instead of run backwards on a line. By contrast, again, Tonon just seemed to naturally get how to use his attributes in the cage. His technique was obviously unrefined, but he was near-perfect in knowing when to commit to his attacks (most of his 'committed' strikes landed, his takedowns were clean, his GnP was accurate and measured). Further, that Dillashaw stance-switching, while rudimentary, is consistent with how Tonon wrestles in his BJJ matches, so it's encouraging to see him adapt an MMA style that is an extension of things he already does well.

 

[Sano]

Nah. Maybe seriously seriously striking for four months but listen to him on Rogans podcast two ( or three?) years ago and he talks bout training stand up regularly in anticipation of eventual mma fight . He def has more than four months stand up .

Obviously. No one who has been striking 4 months looks as good as he did under the bright lights.

I don't get the criticism. This is probably the best striking we've seen from a pure BJJ guy translating to MMA, considering it was his first fight. Sure, he was a bit too big, but dipping to the right isn't necessarily a bad thing. It's all about the timing and angles. Gotta watch out for the lead headkick when you're on the outside, I'd grand you that. He also managed distance well, in that he knew when he was just out of range, and he seemed very athletic. That's uncommon for most BJJ guys. Someone also mentioned that he didn't feint, but he was feinting constantly with his lead while changing levels.

Another commented on his switch to southpaw being awkward, yet he had success several times when he switched, threw the left straight and then the right uppercut as he was returning to orthodox. He caught the dude flush with it more than once, and it was probably the combination that worked best for him.

His GnP also looked very good, and it was pretty apparent that he was not trying to submit the guy. All in all very impressive for anyones MMA debut. A little antsy and wild, but definitely exceeded my expectations.

Btw, here's an interview after the fight:

 

[Balto]

Garry looked pretty impressive to me.

 

[RemyR]

 

[BJJ_Rage]

epic face palm

 

[jack36767]

If you ever want to know why a lot of teachers give in and become cynical assholes... this, this is why

 

[yetanother]

And he had really, really, really slow hands.

Hands? With the exception of beating up a kicked to the liver opponent Roger was only jabbing with his left arm.

 

[nefti]

Hands? With the exception of beating up a kicked to the liver opponent Roger was only jabbing with his left arm.

Roger got slow everything.