EBI 8: Gordon Ryan Reigns Supreme

By Corey Kuropas, September 12, 2016

This past weekend, EBI returned to Los Angeles at the Orpheum Theatre for their eighth edition of their spectacular brand of submission only, no gi Jiu Jitsu. This time, the tournament would feature some of the best middleweights in no gi. EBI 8 had many people talking as Gordon Ryan, the first ever EBI absolute champion returned to compete at his natural weight class, and did he not disappoint. Ryan once again submitted every opponent to take home the EBI middleweight title.

In the opening round, Gordon was matched against Gracie Jiu Jitsu black belt and former UFC fighter, Matt Arroyo. Ryan came out strong, taking the fight to Arroyo. Unsurprisingly, Gordon started to attack the legs of Arroyo, and was able to finish him off with a beautiful inside heel hook to pick up his first victory of the night.

After defeating Arroyo in the first round, Gordon was matched up against 10th Planet competitor, Mike Hillebrand. Hillebrand fought bravely, going for his own leg attacks against Ryan, but Ryan was able to use a kimura trap to get to Hillebrand’s back, and submitted him with a nice rear naked choke. At this point, Ryan had barely broke a sweat.

In the semi finals, he then took on Kyle Chambers, another 10th Planet champion who is a footlock specialist. Chambers fought hard against Gordon, and both had some nice grappling exchanges. By the end of the round, both had not submitted on another, so it went to overtime. Bringing Gordon to overtime was impressive, but it was not enough. Gordon was able to submit Chambers in overtime by first round submission by the way of a choke.

After a tough semi final match, Gordon had once again made it to the finals of EBI. In this championship match, he had to face Robert Drysdale student, Kyle Griffin. Griffin was most known for beating renowned BJJ champ, Romulo Barral at ADCC some years back. The match was a good one, at Griffin was the second and last person to bring Gordon to the overtime round in this match. Ryan went right back to his bread and butter, and tapped out Griffin from another Danaher style heel hook.

This is the second championship that Gordon has won at EBI and is just another notch in the fantastic year he has had. In 2016 alone, he has won two EBI titles (absolute & middlweight) and has defeated Keenan Cornelius at Grappling Industries a few weeks ago. The Danaher standout has his next big match against BJJ world champ, Claudio Calasans in October.