Gordon Ryan has been working with UFC GOAT Jon Jones. The two shared posts about training together.
Jon Jones teased the possibility of retirement, suggesting that his bout with Stipe Miocic might be his last. Jones returned to the Octagon at UFC 285 after a long lay off, winning the heavyweight championship by defeating Ciryl Gane in just over two minutes.
He expressed his desire for a November showdown with Stipe Miocic at Madison Square Garden and mentioned contemplating retirement after that event. Gordon Ryan seemingly confirmed this in an instagram caption that has since been edited.
Despite legal issues and suspensions, Jones has had a dominant career with 27 wins and one controversial disqualification loss.
Recently Gordon Ryan talked to Morning Kombat and outlined what makes Jon Jones so good.
“Jon is a lot is a lot like GSP. He’s not the best wrestler in the world, but the best striker in the world. You’ve got the best jujitsu in the world. But when it’s time to put things all together, just like George, he does it better than anybody else in the world. And so, like, if you if you get a high level wrestler, he’s going to lose a wrestling match to get a high level jiu jitsu guy, then just like an ADCC champion or lose a wrestling match, it was a boxing match.”
“But when it’s time to actually fight anybody else in the world and the two things that impressed me to a very shocking degree with him was, number one, his ability learn moves because most guys, especially his level who were successful and most guys who were in their in their mid thirties and they already have an established team over two decades, they have their game and then once you teach them something they don’t really retain it.”
“It’s like they have their game and that’s it. With Jon, he’s always looking to integrate new things, his game, and if he asks if he has like five different topics he asks me about and I teach him five things he might disregard three of them, but he likes two of them. He will immediately like, okay, that’s part of my game now.”
“And he’ll do it or drill it and then that’s part of his game. And so I think that his ability to learn moves and integrate them into his game. Like I’ll teach him a move and then by the end of the week he will have not just a move, but he will use it. He will find ways to integrate it into different parts of his game for MMA.”
“So I’ll teach him a move from a certain position and then three days later he’s using the moves from three other different positions, or I’ll use the move with three different setups that he came up with intuitively on his own. And so that was really impressive. Another really impressive is he has an incredible ability to intuitively change pace and change game plans through the course of a round or over the course of days or weeks.”
“So like, I’m wrestling with him like my first wrestling him like I was playing a game, I was having some success with the moves, and then he kind of picked up on that pattern without me even telling him and he changed that. So I try to the next time, next round, and now I can’t do it. So I have to change my game.”
“And so we have like this whole dynamic thing that we do where we are changing what we do to adjust to each other the whole time. So the game that we each play in the beginning and the first round will look nothing like the game of replay in the fifth round. Like it’ll be completely different. And so as as he changes, I can’t do the same thing anymore, so I have to change intuitively.”
“And so it’s he’s not like of the guys who was like, this is my game plan. This is I’m going to be. And he just hammers away at it. Whether it works or not, if something’s not working, will instantly change it. And there’s almost no athlete that I’ve ever found rolling with in the world that can do it to the level that he can do it.”
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