Garry Tonon admits tried to scout Shamil Gasanov before the fight and had trouble

After securing the biggest win of his MMA career since making the transition from submission grappling, Garry Tonon gave credit to his preparation.

Whilst any other featherweight wouldn’t risk grappling with the undefeated Russian contender Shamil Gasanov, Tonon put the work in at the gym to ensure he was ready for whatever the Dagestani ground game specialist brought to the table.

Keeping himself in the fight long enough once it hit the ground to search for a submission, ‘The Lion Killer’ capitalized on the opportunity once it arrived.

Handing Gasanov his first loss with a kneebar submission, Tonon later revealed that whilst his training camp prepared him well for the fight, it was not easy.

Coming into ONE Championship as a highly-regarded world title prospect, Gasanov made an immediate impact by taking out a top contender in Kim Jae Woong.

With limited footage available to study on his opponent, Garry Tonon had to use whatever he could to try and make reads of Shamil Gasanov’s game as he revealed in his post-fight interview.

‘The Lion Killer’ stated:

“It's a tough thing for people to fight somebody that's undefeated that came from somewhere else and only had one fight in this organization. You know, it's you [who] have to take a guess at how good the guy is because he only fought against one of the top [and] one of the toughest guys in the world.”

ONE Fight Night 12 is available to watch back via the free event replay on Prime Video for North American viewers.