Metamoris Pro Jiu-Jitsu Invitational II takes place this Sunday afternoon in Los Angeles at the Pauley Pavilion and will stream live on Metamoris.com for just under $20. It will feature 20-minute grappling matches between 12 of the best grappling practitioners on the planet, including the main event between Kron Gracie and Shinya Aoki, as well […]
Metamoris Pro Jiu-Jitsu Invitational II takes place this Sunday afternoon in Los Angeles at the Pauley Pavilion and will stream live on Metamoris.com for just under $20. It will feature 20-minute grappling matches between 12 of the best grappling practitioners on the planet, including the main event between Kron Gracie and Shinya Aoki, as well […]
UFC heavyweight will compete this weekend in a pro Jiu-Jitsu bout versus Roberto ‘Cyborg’ Abreu in the co-main event of the Metamoris II event in Las Angeles. The pay-per-view event will see a number of BJJ matches including the main event match featuring DREAM champ Shinya Aoki versus Kron Gracie. Metamoris II takes place this Sunday (June 9).
UFC heavyweight will compete this weekend in a pro Jiu-Jitsu bout versus Roberto ‘Cyborg’ Abreu in the co-main event of the Metamoris II event in Las Angeles. The pay-per-view event will see a number of BJJ matches including the main event match featuring DREAM champ Shinya Aoki versus Kron Gracie. Metamoris II takes place this Sunday (June 9).
How do you ask a grown man to talk about a time you saw him cry? It can’t be easy, and maybe it’s not even polite. Surely an interviewer can think of other questions to ask someone — especially a fighter.
Unfortunately, in the day or so before speaking with Kron Gracie, that was the main thing I could think to ask, and to ask first. To be clear, I saw Kron cry when he was still a child, and then only from a distance.
Maybe I was mistaken and he wasn’t even truly crying.
Yeah, maybe that’s how you ask a man to talk about it — tepidly and with plenty of qualification. Probably not, but that’s how I broached the subject with the man.
It was the summer of 2000. Rickson Gracie, the champion of his family, was hosting an international Jiu Jitsu invitational. There were tournaments for every experience and ability level, as well as famous champions competing in super matches as well as milling around the arena as a part of the crowd.
And then there was little Kron Gracie. He had to have been just eleven or twelve.
Kron presumably could have chosen to enjoy the whole event as a child — that is, running around with family and friends, playing. Instead, he was in a gi and on the mats.
Kron’s older sisters were pretty and did fun demonstrations with their father. Kron’s older brother, Rockson, walked around the tournament with his head shaved, tattooed and an air of seriousness, the obvious heir apparent to Rickson Gracie’s fighting legacy.
Whatever pressures his siblings surely felt, Kron was the one on the mats that day, competing.
Kron competed that day and, when I saw him, he had just lost.
It couldn’t have been easy, and Rickson’s youngest child was visibly upset. Losing is never fun but when everyone is watching you because your dad is the best fighter in fighting’s first family, it has to be miserable. Rickson, walked over to Kron, put his arms around him and consoled his young son.
How do you ask a grown man to talk about a time you saw him cry? It can’t be easy, and maybe it’s not even polite. Surely an interviewer can think of other questions to ask someone — especially a fighter.
Unfortunately, in the day or so before speaking with Kron Gracie, that was the main thing I could think to ask, and to ask first. To be clear, I saw Kron cry when he was still a child, and then only from a distance.
Maybe I was mistaken and he wasn’t even truly crying.
Yeah, maybe that’s how you ask a man to talk about it — tepidly and with plenty of qualification. Probably not, but that’s how I broached the subject with the man.
It was the summer of 2000. Rickson Gracie, the champion of his family, was hosting an international Jiu Jitsu invitational. There were tournaments for every experience and ability level, as well as famous champions competing in super matches as well as milling around the arena as a part of the crowd.
And then there was little Kron Gracie. He had to have been just eleven or twelve.
Kron presumably could have chosen to enjoy the whole event as a child — that is, running around with family and friends, playing. Instead, he was in a gi and on the mats.
Kron’s older sisters were pretty and did fun demonstrations with their father. Kron’s older brother, Rockson, walked around the tournament with his head shaved, tattooed and an air of seriousness, the obvious heir apparent to Rickson Gracie’s fighting legacy.
Whatever pressures his siblings surely felt, Kron was the one on the mats that day, competing.
Kron competed that day and, when I saw him, he had just lost.
It couldn’t have been easy, and Rickson’s youngest child was visibly upset. Losing is never fun but when everyone is watching you because your dad is the best fighter in fighting’s first family, it has to be miserable. Rickson, walked over to Kron, put his arms around him and consoled his young son.
These days, Kron Gracie is a black belt international competitor — recognized as one of the best middleweights in the submission grappling world. I ask if he remembers that one match, an eternity ago and surely insignificant by now in the grand scheme of his career.
He does.
“I remember every moment of that match,” Kron tells CagePotato.
“I remember training for it, I remember everything he tried, everything I tried, and I remember losing.”
Kron had competed for years but says that his dad’s tournament was the first time he had trained with real focus. The let-down was rough.
“I felt pressure to do well. All eyes were on me,” Kron details.
If the young Gracie remembers vividly the hollow feeling of defeat, the memory of his father comforting him is equally as strong. “I remember every word he told me,” he says. “He just told me that it was alright and that I’d be ok.”
How Kron got from there to today, where he makes a living teaching and competing in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and is respected as having one of the best pure styles in all of submission grappling is no doubt complex and layered. Having his father’s unconditional support and guidance must have been a big part.
It also seems possible that Kron learned to convert pressure and pain into hard work and excellence. Though he remembers every detail of that loss at his father’s tournament in 2000, one can only imagine how small that pain was in comparison to what he and his family went through later that same year.
Rickson’s oldest child Rockson died in December of 2000. Rickson never fought professionally again and has cited that moment as the lowest of his life.
“Deep down, you see a reason to shoot yourself in the head, to stop doing the right thing, to stop being a happy person. You may want to fools yourself, thinking ‘it’s bad, but I can take it,’ and that’s the kind of lack of honesty that will never cure the wound. I hit rock bottom and decided, deep down, whether I would come back to the surface or not,” Rickson told GracieMag in a 2010 interview.
Rickson clearly did go forward and, to this day, trains and teaches. Kron doesn’t talk to us about his brother’s death specifically but does say that shortly after the summer 2000 tournament, he began to see life and Jiu Jitsu a bit differently.
“I was raised around winning and championships so it was kind of always expected,” Kron says.
“Not long after that tournament, I began to take it more seriously and see myself having a future in Jiu Jitsu, in making it my career. Things happen in life and you decide it is time to step up and become a man.”
That is heady stuff for a kid to take on but Kron did — training and competing constantly. He dominated the ranks all the way through the brown belt class, before his father awarded him his black belt in 2008.
Ordinarily, matches are ten minutes long and points are scored to decide a winner if no one can finish with a submission. At Metamoris matches, there are no points and if you want to assure a win, you need to get a submission during the twenty minute matches.
Kron’s style fits the Metamoris format well because of the finality it requires for victory. Kron hardly ever uses a move that a first year Brazilian Jiu Jitsu student wouldn’t begin to learn.
He’s all substance and aggression, with no flash. The idea, his father’s idea that Kron has adopted, is to do the simple things right — with proper leverage and weight distribution applied to your opponent.
“If we spend doing techniques in Jiu Jitsu competition that wouldn’t work in a real fight, what is the point?” Kron asks.
That approach to Jiu Jitsu — to learn it as a fighting art, not just a pretty looking exercise without purpose or consequence, is all Rickson Gracie. Over the course of his career, Kron’s father fought in gis on the mats, speedos on the beach, shorts in packed arenas and in whatever he happened to be wearing when business needed to be settled on the street.
(Kron has been training MMA with Nate (left) and Nick (right) Diaz | Photo via GracieMag)
Kron seems in the midst of trying to prove he can become the best in the non-striking submission grappling world. Yet, the philosophy he’s adopted from his father and grandfather Helio Gracie that Jiu Jitsu is for fighting and fighting effectively, begs the question of whether he’d consider carrying on their fighting legacy himself.
I ask Kron if he thinks he will ever fight in MMA and his answer is to the point. “Yes,” he says, without doubt. “I will absolutely fight.”
At the Metamoris II Pro Jiu Jitsu Invitational on June 9th, Kron will take on one of the best Jiu Jitsu representatives in MMA, Shinya Aoki. Kron’s desire to fight MMA and his pairing with Aoki is no coincidence.
“Totally,” he says when asked if he expects grappling against Aoki to give him a taste of how he might fare against top MMA grapplers.
“That’s why I wanted this match up with Aoki. I have so much respect for his Jiu Jitsu game in MMA. He has submitted so many people at the top levels of MMA. I want to see what he feels like. I want to see how my Jiu Jitsu matches up against his. I believe in my Jiu Jitsu and that it will work in MMA, but I am not looking past Aoki at all. I think this match will give me an idea of what some of these guys feel like.”
Kron already has a decent idea of what it feels like to lock horns with some top MMA fighters. As he talks with CagePotato, Nate Diaz sits nearby. Diaz is helping Kron train for Metamoris II.
Kron says he’s been working with both Nate and brother Nick Diaz frequently, and not just on submission grappling. Kron was in Nick Diaz’ corner when he faced Georges St. Pierre earlier this year, in fact.
“Nate is here helping me prepare for Aoki,” Kron says. “I’ve gotten to work with him and Nick a lot now and it’s great.”
Kron says that he gets in MMA work with the Diaz brothers as well as grappling. “Oh yeah, for sure,” he says, sounding as if getting to spar MMA with elite fighters is much of the point of his training with the Diaz brothers.
“We do a lot of work and all types.”
Kron’s intensity leading up to matches is certainly that of someone who takes winning and losing seriously. However, the reckless abandon with which he competes suggests someone who doesn’t fear loss.
Many high level grapplers have unbearably boring matches when pitted against one another. Wary of making even the tiniest mistake which their opponent can seize on, many black belt matches are cautious, careful and horrible to watch.
Turn on a Kron Gracie match, any one, and you’ll see the furthest thing from that type of match. He drives, scrambles, pivots and spins, all in constant search of a submission win. Kron grapples with the sense of urgency of a man fighting for his life — which, he might say, is kind of the point.
Kron speaks as someone who not only carries the pressure of being the son of the greatest Jiu Jitsu fighter of all time, but also as one who possesses the confidence from a lifetime of personal instruction from that same master.
Beat me, if you can. And if you do, watch your back because I’ll get better and come back for you.
“It isn’t that I don’t care about losing,” Kron explains. “But all you can do is train the right way leading up to a fight, and then let go and go hard in the fight. The point of a fight is to see who the better guy is. I hate losing. But if I go out there, give it everything I have and lose, then the guy is better than me. If I don’t let it all out on the mat, I won’t ever know who truly was the better man that day.”
You’re born with pressure to be great when you’re born a Gracie. At the same time, putting that yolk around your neck and facing conflict and tests head-on is modeled for you.
Maybe that’s part of why Kron Gracie decided at an early age to run right into the fire, perhaps not unaffected or unafraid, but at least unflinching. And, if over time, Kron becomes one of the great ones, that decision will probably be why and how he got there.
Al Bundy may have exaggerated his exploits at Polk High, but the actor who portrayed him on Married With Children, Ed O’Neill, actually has real athletic chops to speak of. O’Neill played linebacker in college at Ohio State and Youngstown State University, and was briefly signed with the Pittsburgh Steelers where, according to O’Neill, “I stayed for about a minute.”
While acting in Hollywood, O’Neill discovered the gentle art of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. He began training under Rorian Gracie and never stopped, earning a black belt in 2007.
“I began studying Gracie Jiu Jitsu over 20 years ago,” said O’Neill in a Metamoris press release distributed Tuesday. “I was actually very hesitant to start, but a 10-minute session with Rorion Gracie was enough to get me hooked. For me, studying Jiu Jitsu has been an amazing experience. In a way it’s given me a second family.”
O’Neill will provide color commentary for the highly-anticipated submission-only pro invitational Metamoris II, which takes place in Los Angeles on June 9th and will be broadcast live on their website, metamoris.com. O’Neill will join his long-time teacher’s son, Rener Gracie, in providing the commentary for the Metamoris II stream.
From what we’ve seen, O’Neill is capable of providing insightful analysis and we all know he can kick ass. We’re not usually big on celebrity gimmick appearances but O’Neill doing fight commentary makes perfect sense to us. Feel free to react to this news accordingly.
The full Metamoris II lineup is after the jump…
(Good work, Ed. Position before submission.)
Al Bundy may have exaggerated his exploits at Polk High, but the actor who portrayed him on Married With Children, Ed O’Neill, actually has real athletic chops to speak of. O’Neill played linebacker in college at Ohio State and Youngstown State University, and was briefly signed with the Pittsburgh Steelers where, according to O’Neill, “I stayed for about a minute.”
While acting in Hollywood, O’Neill discovered the gentle art of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. He began training under Rorian Gracie and never stopped, earning a black belt in 2007.
“I began studying Gracie Jiu Jitsu over 20 years ago,” said O’Neill in a Metamoris press release distributed Tuesday. “I was actually very hesitant to start, but a 10-minute session with Rorion Gracie was enough to get me hooked. For me, studying Jiu Jitsu has been an amazing experience. In a way it’s given me a second family.”
O’Neill will provide color commentary for the highly-anticipated submission-only pro invitational Metamoris II, which takes place in Los Angeles on June 9th and will be broadcast live on their website, metamoris.com. O’Neill will join his long-time teacher’s son, Rener Gracie, in providing the commentary for the Metamoris II stream.
From what we’ve seen, O’Neill is capable of providing insightful analysis and we all know he can kick ass. We’re not usually big on celebrity gimmick appearances but O’Neill doing fight commentary makes perfect sense to us. Feel free to react to this news accordingly.
The full Metamoris II lineup is after the jump…
Official Metamoris II Card:
Shinya Aoki vs. Kron Gracie
Braulio Estima vs. Rodolfo Vieira
Roberto “Cyborg” Abreu vs. Brendan Schaub
Mackenzie Dern vs. Michelle Nicolini
Andre Galvao vs. Rafael Lovato Jr.
Bill “The Grill” Cooper vs. Victor Estima*
*Cooper was originally scheduled to face Ryan Hall but Hall has pulled out of the match because of injury.
Doors open at 3 pm PST
Royce Gracie autograph signing from 3-4 pm PST
Broadcast begins at 4 pm PST
(Photo courtesy of Kinya Hashimoto via MMAFighting)
[Ed. note: This is the third in a series of interviews with the fighters and promoters behind Metamoris II: Gracie vs. Aoki, which goes down June 9th in Los Angeles. Stay tuned for more, and follow Metamoris on Facebook and Twitter for important event updates. You can purchase tickets right here.]
Ryan Hall burst onto the public submission grappling scene much faster than most. As a young blue and purple belt, Hall was thrust into the public eye by a former coach when he starred in for-sale instructional videos, espousing him as already an expert. In competition, which Hall took part in with feverish frequency, the Jiu Jitsu player often used complicated-looking inverted, upside-down techniques.
To be honest, it was difficult for this writer to warm up to Hall as a spectator due to all this. Sure, he was good, real good. But, what is this kid doing selling instructional videos in a world filled with black belt legends trying to make a living? What was all this spinning, upside-down crap he did? Surely he was a BJJ practitioner of the least compelling variety — the ones who focus on parlor trick positions and techniques that would get you in a whole lot of trouble in a real fight.
Of course, Ryan Hall the person and Jiu Jitsu practitioner deserved a more thoughtful look than my initial and judgmental cursory one. Hall separated himself from that former instructor, opened up his own academy, 50/50 Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and began to add major international titles to his resume.
Around the time he medaled at the 2009 ADCC (the Olympics of submission wrestling), it became crystal clear even to the most closed-minded, like myself, that Hall was the real deal. He wasn’t some kid winning regional tournaments with inverted triangle chokes, anymore. The techniques Hall used to win world titles were far from gimmicks and interviews showed him to be thoughtful, bright and humble.
“For better or for worse I was put out there in public when I was younger, a lower belt,” Hall tells CagePotato on a recent Saturday afternoon.
(Photo courtesy of Kinya Hashimoto via MMAFighting)
[Ed. note: This is the third in a series of interviews with the fighters and promoters behind Metamoris II: Gracie vs. Aoki, which goes down June 9th in Los Angeles. Stay tuned for more, and follow Metamoris on Facebook and Twitter for important event updates. You can purchase tickets right here.]
Ryan Hall burst onto the public submission grappling scene much faster than most. As a young blue and purple belt, Hall was thrust into the public eye by a former coach when he starred in for-sale instructional videos, espousing him as already an expert. In competition, which Hall took part in with feverish frequency, the Jiu Jitsu player often used complicated-looking inverted, upside-down techniques.
To be honest, it was difficult for this writer to warm up to Hall from a distance due to all this. Sure, he was good, real good. But, what is this kid doing selling instructional videos in a world filled with black belt legends trying to make a living? What was all this spinning, upside-down crap he did? Surely he was a BJJ practitioner of the least compelling variety — the ones who focus on parlor trick positions and techniques that would get you in a whole lot of trouble in a real fight.
Of course, Ryan Hall the person and Jiu Jitsu practitioner deserved a more thoughtful look than my initial and judgmental cursory one. Hall separated himself from that former instructor, opened up his own academy, 50/50 Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and began to add major international titles to his resume.
Around the time he medaled at the 2009 ADCC (the Olympics of submission wrestling), it became crystal clear even to the most closed-minded, like myself, that Hall was the real deal. He wasn’t some kid winning regional tournaments with inverted triangle chokes, anymore. The techniques Hall used to win world titles were far from gimmicks and interviews showed him to be thoughtful, bright and humble.
“For better or for worse I was put out there in public when I was younger, a lower belt,” Hall tells CagePotato on a recent Saturday afternoon.
As for the sometimes esoteric-seeming techniques that Hall became notorious for in his youth, he says it was just about finding something to work for him against more experienced opponents. “Of course the best way to win is to take someone down, mount them and cross choke them,” Hall says.
“But I started competing against black belts, high level black belts, as a blue and purple belt. There was no way I was going to go in there and dominate in every facet against those guys. The only chance I had was to surprise them with an unexpected transition or an angle they didn’t see from others too often.”
Hall’s intelligence, savvy and flexibility allow him to do some cool and creative looking things out on the mats, but to him, the mat is not just a canvas for artistic expression, it is the training grounds for war. “Jiu Jitsu is about fighting, about learning to defend yourself against someone who is trying to hurt you in real life,” Hall says.
Towards that end, Ryan doesn’t rule out any technique, as long as it proves the right tool for the moment. “People in Jiu Jitsu talk about techniques in ways people don’t in other fight styles,” Hall says.
“Someone asks, ‘oh what do you think of x-guard, or this or that guard?’ Imagine if you asked Oscar De La Hoya or Manny Pacquiao a question like, ‘what do you think of the left hook or right cross?’ They’d look at you like you were crazy and say, ‘well, when the situation calls for the left hook, I use the left hook and when the situation calls for a right cross, I use the right cross.’ Techniques are not magic tricks, they are for different situations. If a situation on the ground calls for a certain guard, use that guard.”
Simple as that sounds coming out his mouth, Hall’s lack of dogma and open-mindedness makes him a bit of an iconoclast. Lately, the 50/50 Academy head has focused his own training on Mixed Martial Arts.
Hall has a 2-1 MMA record and has joined Georges St. Pierre in training at Firas Zahabi’s TriStar gym in Montreal. Hall had promised Zahabi that he would focus one hundred percent of his competitive energy on MMA and so had taken a leave from submission grappling competition.
A call from Metamoris head Ralek Gracie temporarily changed Hall’s plans, however. “I got a call and was shocked when they offered me a match against [three-time BJJ world champion] Rafael Mendes,” Hall remembers.
“It was such a great opportunity that I spoke with Firas and he understood why I wanted to take it.”
Ryan was disappointed when that originally-planned match against Mendes fell through, but couldn’t say no to facing the man he is now set to compete against at Metamoris II, June 9th in Los Angeles, CA, Bill “The Grill” Cooper.
“I think Cooper is good enough to beat absolutely anybody in the world on any given day,” Hall says.
“He also sets such a fast pace and goes hard. I think that goes well with my style. The fact that he’s a bigger guy than me also makes it an even tougher challenge. Facing someone like Bill in a match twice as long as we usually get [twenty minutes] where the only way to win is by submission, that’s something I’m very excited about.”
(Photo courtesy of Kinya Hashimoto via MMAFighting)
[Ed. note: This is the third in a series of interviews with the fighters and promoters behind Metamoris II: Gracie vs. Aoki, which goes down June 9th in Los Angeles. Stay tuned for more, and follow Metamoris on Facebook and Twitter for important event updates. You can purchase tickets right here.]
Ryan Hall burst onto the public submission grappling scene much faster than most. As a young blue and purple belt, Hall was thrust into the public eye by a former coach when he starred in for-sale instructional videos, espousing him as already an expert. In competition, which Hall took part in with feverish frequency, the Jiu Jitsu player often used complicated-looking inverted, upside-down techniques.
To be honest, it was difficult for this writer to warm up to Hall as a spectator due to all this. Sure, he was good, real good. But, what is this kid doing selling instructional videos in a world filled with black belt legends trying to make a living? What was all this spinning, upside-down crap he did? Surely he was a BJJ practitioner of the least compelling variety — the ones who focus on parlor trick positions and techniques that would get you in a whole lot of trouble in a real fight.
Of course, Ryan Hall the person and Jiu Jitsu practitioner deserved a more thoughtful look than my initial and judgmental cursory one. Hall separated himself from that former instructor, opened up his own academy, 50/50 Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and began to add major international titles to his resume.
Around the time he medaled at the 2009 ADCC (the Olympics of submission wrestling), it became crystal clear even to the most closed-minded, like myself, that Hall was the real deal. He wasn’t some kid winning regional tournaments with inverted triangle chokes, anymore. The techniques Hall used to win world titles were far from gimmicks and interviews showed him to be thoughtful, bright and humble.
“For better or for worse I was put out there in public when I was younger, a lower belt,” Hall tells CagePotato on a recent Saturday afternoon.
(Photo courtesy of Kinya Hashimoto via MMAFighting)
[Ed. note: This is the third in a series of interviews with the fighters and promoters behind Metamoris II: Gracie vs. Aoki, which goes down June 9th in Los Angeles. Stay tuned for more, and follow Metamoris on Facebook and Twitter for important event updates. You can purchase tickets right here.]
Ryan Hall burst onto the public submission grappling scene much faster than most. As a young blue and purple belt, Hall was thrust into the public eye by a former coach when he starred in for-sale instructional videos, espousing him as already an expert. In competition, which Hall took part in with feverish frequency, the Jiu Jitsu player often used complicated-looking inverted, upside-down techniques.
To be honest, it was difficult for this writer to warm up to Hall as a spectator due to all this. Sure, he was good, real good. But, what is this kid doing selling instructional videos in a world filled with black belt legends trying to make a living? What was all this spinning, upside-down crap he did? Surely he was a BJJ practitioner of the least compelling variety — the ones who focus on parlor trick positions and techniques that would get you in a whole lot of trouble in a real fight.
Of course, Ryan Hall the person and Jiu Jitsu practitioner deserved a more thoughtful look than my initial and judgmental cursory one. Hall separated himself from that former instructor, opened up his own academy, 50/50 Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, and began to add major international titles to his resume.
Around the time he medaled at the 2009 ADCC (the Olympics of submission wrestling), it became crystal clear even to the most closed-minded, like myself, that Hall was the real deal. He wasn’t some kid winning regional tournaments with inverted triangle chokes, anymore. The techniques Hall used to win world titles were far from gimmicks and interviews showed him to be thoughtful, bright and humble.
“For better or for worse I was put out there in public when I was younger, a lower belt,” Hall tells CagePotato on a recent Saturday afternoon.
As for the sometimes esoteric-seeming techniques that Hall became notorious for in his youth, he says it was just about finding something to work for him against more experienced opponents. “Of course the best way to win is to take someone down, mount them and cross choke them,” Hall says.
“But I started competing against black belts, high level black belts, as a blue and purple belt. There was no way I was going to go in there and dominate in every facet against those guys. The only chance I had was to surprise them with an unexpected transition or an angle they didn’t see from others too often.”
Hall’s intelligence, savvy and flexibility allow him to do some cool and creative looking things out on the mats, but to him, the mat is not just a canvas for artistic expression, it is the training grounds for war. “Jiu Jitsu is about fighting, about learning to defend yourself against someone who is trying to hurt you in real life,” Hall says.
Towards that end, Ryan doesn’t rule out any technique, as long as it proves the right tool for the moment. “People in Jiu Jitsu talk about techniques in ways people don’t in other fight styles,” Hall says.
“Someone asks, ‘oh what do you think of x-guard, or this or that guard?’ Imagine if you asked Oscar De La Hoya or Manny Pacquiao a question like, ‘what do you think of the left hook or right cross?’ They’d look at you like you were crazy and say, ‘well, when the situation calls for the left hook, I use the left hook and when the situation calls for a right cross, I use the right cross.’ Techniques are not magic tricks, they are for different situations. If a situation on the ground calls for a certain guard, use that guard.”
Simple as that sounds coming out his mouth, Hall’s lack of dogma and open-mindedness makes him a bit of an iconoclast. Lately, the 50/50 Academy head has focused his own training on Mixed Martial Arts.
Hall has a 2-1 MMA record and has joined Georges St. Pierre in training at Firas Zahabi’s TriStar gym in Montreal. Hall had promised Zahabi that he would focus one hundred percent of his competitive energy on MMA and so had taken a leave from submission grappling competition.
A call from Metamoris head Ralek Gracie temporarily changed Hall’s plans, however. “I got a call and was shocked when they offered me a match against [three-time BJJ world champion] Rafael Mendes,” Hall remembers.
“It was such a great opportunity that I spoke with Firas and he understood why I wanted to take it.”
Ryan was disappointed when that originally-planned match against Mendes fell through, but couldn’t say no to facing the man he is now set to compete against at Metamoris II, June 9th in Los Angeles, CA, Bill “The Grill” Cooper.
“I think Cooper is good enough to beat absolutely anybody in the world on any given day,” Hall says.
“He also sets such a fast pace and goes hard. I think that goes well with my style. The fact that he’s a bigger guy than me also makes it an even tougher challenge. Facing someone like Bill in a match twice as long as we usually get [twenty minutes] where the only way to win is by submission, that’s something I’m very excited about.”
