Pre-match Talk: A fascinating part of the match between Gordon Ryan and Keenan Cornelius was not observed by most people. Shortly prior to the match, the referee came by the warm up mat to confirm the rules to the athletes. Mr Cornelius suggested a change to the prior rules. Initially it was deemed that if the athletes went out of bounds, they would be re-started in neutral standing position at the center of the mat. This was due to the difficulty of accurate re-starts in grappling positions. Mr Cornelius suggested this was not desirable, as it could lead to fleeing the mat as a response any submission threat and make the chance of successful submission much less likely, undesirable in a match where submission was the only means of victory. I was impressed by his suggestion. It conveyed a spirit of hunting for the submission and confidence in his ability to get to it and successfully follow through. Not to be outdone, Mr Ryan immediately agreed, even when the possibility of athletes going off the mat and onto the hardwood floors was mentioned as a possibility. It was a delight to see both athletes express a keen desire to get to a submission and prevent weak tactical escapes such as fleeing the mat and instead demand that any escape be a genuine technical escape. It set the tone for a great match in the tradition of the old school approach of whatever time it took to get the truest measure of victory- submission; with as little outside intervention as possible (Helio Gracie once fought an MMA fight that was over three hours long! And many of the early grappling matches went over an hour). It was deeply impressive to see the same spirit in both athletes and their confidence in their ability. Once the match began, both men were true to their word- there was almost no outside intervention in what was a very pure match where submission was the only possible result. A match of this style is not seen often these days, but it was a pleasure to be a small part of one as epic as this.
