Gordon Ryan Goes Off on Gustavo Batista for Turning Down Match
Never one to shy away from conflict, Gordon Ryan has renewed a beef that kicked off in February. On Saturday, the top pound-for-pound no-gi grappler called out fellow black belt competitor Gustavo Batista for declining a match under purportedly absurd conditions offered by Ryan.
In February, Ryan and Batista went at it on social media, with Ryan eventually offering a match with Batista under outrageous conditions, such as allowing Batista to start in the mount position with double underhooks. Read about that here.
According to Ryan, Batista has now declined such a match.
“If someone offered me those exact rules to have a gi match, my answer would instantly be yes, because if you start with someone’s hands above your head, you should easilty finish them every time,” wrote Ryan.
“This is the 5th guy in 4 weeks who has declined facing me,” he claimed.
As fun as it might sound, a match against Batista, even with the absurd conditions, was probably never likely. That doesn’t mean the beef couldn’t grow into a more traditional match down the road, though.
Ryan is fresh off a dominant submission win over Vagner Rocha at the last Who’s Number One event.
