Garry Tonon loses via submission during ONE FC Grappling event

Benny A. King

Garry Tonon has had a rough year. The 30 year old grappler turned mixed martial artist suffered his first defeat in mixed martial arts in addition to losing a submission only match just today.

It’s a rude awakening for Tonon, who has been one of the most interesting grapplers to watch in the last 5 years. Tonon faced Tye Ruotolo of Atos – and lost via submission just two minutes in.

19 year old Tye is a promising prospect on the scene having previously established himself as a d’arce specialist.

Tonon is somewhat famous for an attractive style in addition to pretty great submission defense – in fact Tonon’s name in the bjj community was made thanks to the footage of an armbar attempt by Kron Gracie.

Tonon started off way more relaxed than he should’ve been and Ruotolo pounced on it. Tonon even skirted the rules a bit, having jammed his toes into the fence for a brief moment.

Ultimately the pressure of the d’arce choke was too much and Tonon tapped.

In the post-fight interview, a very excited Ruotolo revealed:

“I’ll be honest, when I first took the match, I thought it was gonna take me about 6 or 7 minutes before getting the sub.”

“Through fight week I was sizing up Garry. I thought he was gonna come a little bit quicker.”

“That’s what we expected. My brother got a killer D’Arce [choke] so I’m stoked to pull it off tonight, for sure.”

“”Yeah, that was perfect. The technique, the positioning, so I just know I couldn’t burn out my arms, so I kept the same pace and I got the tap.”

“I’m super grateful to have the match with Garry. He’s a beast. A legend of the sport, for sure. Great win over him. Thank you.”

 

As for Tonon, he wasn’t too broken up about it: