“It makes it easier to get home safe” – Garry Tonon says BJJ prowess helps him absorb minimal damage in MMA fights

Former ONE featherweight MMA world title challenger and current first-ranked featherweight MMA contender in ONE Championship, ‘The Lion Killer’ Garry Tonon will live and die by his jiu-jitsu.

The decorated jiu-jitsu black belt and submission grappler turned mixed martial artist says he will always rely on his superior grappling chops to get the job done against any and all of his opponents. At the very least, he can rely on his jiu-jitsu to consistently keep himself out of harm’s way.

Speaking to Sportskeeda MMA in a recent interview, Tonon talked about using his jiu-jitsu to prolong his MMA career.

‘The Lion Killer’ said:

“I want every fight to go this way and I know it can't always be that way. But with the help of jiu-jitsu, it makes it a little bit easier to get it done and get home safe and not have to worry about taking too many head injuries and things like that.”

Of course, this is exactly how it played out for Tonon in his last fight, when he took on former ONE featherweight and lightweight MMA world champion ‘The Situ-Asian’ Martin Nguyen in Tokyo last weekend.

Tonon locked horns with the Vietnamese-Australian superstar at ONE 165: Superlek vs. Takeru, which took place live from the Ariake Arena in Japan’s capital city last Sunday, January 28th. The event streamed live via global pay-per-view on watch.onefc.com.

‘The Lion Killer’ made quick work of Nguyen, taking ‘The Situ-Asian’ down easily and winning via rear-naked choke submission in the first round. Tonon took virtually no damage in the fight, which is impressive, especially against a knockout machine like Nguyen.

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Garry Tonon on tapping out Martin Nguyen: “It’s just such an amazing feeling”

Needless to say, Garry Tonon is proud of how he took care of business against Martin Nguyen. He said in the same interview:

“To do it the way that I did it too [beat Martin Nguyen by submission], man, it’s just such an amazing feeling and I try to remind myself of that stuff sometimes because it keeps me a little bit more grateful, and, you know, I'm grateful for everything that I have everything that America has given to me and I'm grateful to be here in Japan and to share this country with them while I'm here.”

Stay tuned to Sportskeeda MMA for news and updates on Garry Tonon’s next move in MMA.