​Interview by Hywel Teague

Like an old­-time carny wrestler who never turns down a challenge, Garry Tonon made his name travelling the world to take on all­-comers. He became a fan­favorite thanks to his all­-out style of attacking that almost always guarantees an exciting match.

The New Jersey native reveals in this exclusive interview how he plans to deal with one of the most dangerous leglockers in the game in Masakazu Imanari, why he thinks sub­-only is more entertaining than points-­based tournaments, and the three crazy opponents he wants for future superfights.

You’re heading straight from ADCC to Polaris. First off, what takeaways did you get from that tournament, and how will it affect you going into Polaris?

Right after ADCC I came back on Monday and went right into my training camp for Polaris and my match with Imanari. Coming back from ADCC we got a lot of mixed feedback, you know? Positive and negative. Some of the things I was doing, I realised I was doing well,and some things I realised I needed to improve. Taking all that into the next tournament experience is super important.

The one thing I would say is that it’s different going into Polaris than ADCC in terms of the preparation. Some of the mistakes I made in ADCC won’t be related to Polaris, because the style of the tournament is much different. I won’t have to worry about points, which was my main issue at ADCC. Those are the things I need to fix.

But going into Polaris I feel very strong and I’ve had three competitions in six weeks. I feel at the peak of my game right now. I’m pretty excited for this one.

Along with your coach John Danaher and teammate Eddie Cummings, you’re known for having done extensive study of the top leglockers. Among the leglock specialists, where does Imanari rank?

We’ve done a lot of study of the leglock games out there, John obviously does the most, and Eddie does a lot ­ I look at things here and there, especially my opponents. I think that Imanari ranks pretty highly among the top leglockers in the sport. He doesn’t compete in pure grappling that often, however I’ve seen some footage of when he did and he did so successfully.

I would say that everybody’s different, and stylistically one of the things that he is best at is his entries into positions. He’s creative with some of his inversions, from standing and on the ground. It’s not your standard “stepping into an ankle lock” entry. And the second thing you have to look out for with him is his ability to transition from submission to submission. He knows how to go from a toehold to a kneebar to a heelhook, which not everybody does. That’s another thing that I need to look out for.

So what have you identified as his major strengths and weaknesses?

The major concern for this fight is that based off the grappling footage that we have of him not so much the MMA fights, because most of his opponents when he fights don’t have an idea how to attack his legs ­ but from the grappling matches we have, it’s clear that some of the most dangerous times that will occur will be when I got after my own leglocks. He’ll probably eat a few ankle pops just to get a hold of my own legs. I need to be offensive and defensive at the same time, I have to find positions where it is difficult for him to attack my legs, and when I am attacking his legs I have to be very mindful of his attacks. That’s going to be the biggest challenge in this fight.

As he’s smaller, Imanari requested you make 150lb the day before the competition.

Having cleaned up your diet, you look noticeably slimmer. The question is, how do you feel, and how has it affected your grappling? This weight cut has been pretty difficult for me, it’s my first cut to 150lb. I’ve routinely made 155 the day of and day before, but this is the smallest I’ve been in a long time. My diet is pretty horrible most of the time, so there’s a lot of weight to lose! When I do basic things to change my diet, just eating more fruits and vegetables, less high sodium foods,it rapidly affects my weight. It’s not a hard thing for me to cut weight. The last 10lbs will be the challenge, that’ll take a bit of effort on my part with cutting carbs and water loading and stuff.

That’s one of the things that I don’t think people know, is that even though I take most of my matches at around 170lb, I wouldn’t consider it to be my true weight class. With a day before weigh­in there are going to be guys competing against me who weigh 185lb or 190lb, so I consider my true weight class to be 150­160lb. I just tend to compete at 170lb more often, but you’ll see me in IBJJF at lightweight which is 162lb.

But as for how it’s been affecting me, the biggest thing about cutting weight is it makes me more irritable and angry... Not as much of a happy camper! I still feel that I train effectively, I’m feeling that my stamina is very good. If anything it’s better than it would normally be! The weight cut more than likely has helped me rather than hurt me.

Points / submission only... Do you have a preference for which format you compete in? In an ideal world, what rules system would you compete in for the rest of your career?

I’m happy that there are a lot of different rule-­sets out there, it keeps the game fun. It presents some new challenges. I wouldn’t want everything to be sub-­only, or just to be points. I’m happy there’s more sub-­only out there as it’s very well­-suited to my game, constantly attacking for submissions, and I have good submission defence. I feel pretty confident going into sub­-only formats.

If I was only going to compete one style, I would definitely choose sub-­only, for sure. The thing I like about it, is that it tends to be more entertaining.

The biggest thing is getting people to compete who are submission hungry, who are attacking. You can have two people compete who don’t go after submissions too often; even though it was sub­-only, it’s still a boring fight. The rule set is not necessarily going to fix boring matches in jiu­jitsu. When it comes to grappling as entertainment, we need to find people who are as entertaining as possible and put together shows based on that. That’s more important that the rule­set.

I do think that the sub-­only format allows for people to open up a little bit more in terms of being exciting. I’ve seen this in ADCC for example, guys may make a decision that they won’t open up as they don’t want to be scored on, In some sense, the rule­set does make a difference or not whether the match will be exciting, but I think it’s the grappler that makes the difference; which two grapplers you put against each other will make it exciting or not.

At Polaris 1 you beat Polish leglocker Marcin Held. This time out you have Imanari, who’s known as the “Ashikan Judan”, or “10th degree black belt in leglocks”. Looking ahead to Polaris 3, if you could choose to face any top leglock specialist in the world, who would it be and why?

Looking forward to Polaris 3 I wouldn’t say that I need to fight somebody who is just a leglock specialist, I’m always open to all kinds of different superfights, and there are a lot of different grapplers out there who I would love to fight.

I don’t wish to be one-­dimensional, I don’t want to be known as just a leglock guy. But I do want people to know it’s a strength in my game.

If I did have to pick somebody, there are a couple of people out there; Ryan Hall is definitely a guy that I’m looking to compete against in the near future, I know he just made it onto The Ultimate Fighter so we’ll see where that goes, it’ll depend on where his MMA career goes in the next few months whether I’ll be able to ever fight him.

Some more leglock ­specific guys: Dean Lister and Rousimar Palhares would be awesome superfights as well. They’re a lot bigger than me but I’m still open to the challenge. Davi Ramos would be a cool superfight, too.

Anybody, really! Anybody that’s up for it and wants the challenge, I’m open to all superfights so long as the guys are at the highest level in the sport.

Garry Tonon will face off against Masakzu Imanari on Polaris 2 on September 12th. Sign up now for a pro account and watch the event live or on-­demand exclusively here once FloGrappling. You’ll also get access to our extensive technique library and feature documentaries.