Originally Posted by
VJ Bella
My thoughts on the issue...when you start picking and choosing who to fight and refusing to fight certain jj players...you open yourself up to this kind of talk. I would think that it would be much more beneficial to his reputation if he took the fight and completely dominated Denny (as he believes) adding on to his highlight reel, than it would be going to class and teaching that night or what have you. The more likely scenario is that ryan probably realized that the risk of losing to denny (who trains in an unorthodox style that he is not completely familiar with) outweighed the reward of beating him. I've always been of the school to take on all comers...settle it on the mat and leave no doubt who the better grappler is. It wasn't that long ago that nobody knew who Ryan Hall was either...but he proved himself against some of the better names and thus became a household name...but you have to be given that opportunity to be able to do that
I agree with you. I would like to see him fight Denny too. I actually think it will happen sooner than later.
But at what point do you start sacrificing "reputation" for making a living? I'm not asking a rhetorical question either. If Ryan Hall spent all of his time accepting challenges and superfights, he would literally never have time to make money from seminars or at his academy. He would always be having to train to take on all-comers. Then on top of that, if you fight enough, you are eventually going to lose. I'm not talking about Denny, but if Ryan started to take on all-comers, eventually he would fight someone that is truly not on his level. If he wins, big deal. He should have won. If he loses, then everyone would go, "that Ryan Hall is overrated, he got beat by such-and-such." It's a slippery slope to take on "all-comers" as you say, because there will always be "all-comers."
As you said, he has proven himself by beating many a household name not only in superfights, but in tournaments. Leo Vieira wins almost every fight by submission and is arguably the best guard passer alive and he was never able to pass Ryan's guard. Before that fight, Ryan did not even know about Marcelo Garcia's style of guillotine, and even though he lost fair and square, that was one of the 2 or 3 best matches of Day One of 09 ADCC, along with Gracie/Garcia and Weidman/Galvao.
A lot of the people we look up to don't even have health insurance. Everyone jumped down Rafa Mendes' throat when he didn't take the 10,000 dollar winner-take-all sub only match with Cobrinha, but what if he didn't win? Sure, rep is very important, but Mendes beat Cobrinha a handful of times already & would have lost so much time and money if he took the match and lost it. This is coming from Cobrinha's number one fan. I would have loved to see that match as much as anyone else, but I do understand why Mendes turned it down, and I don't just chalk it up to, "he's scared of losing to Cobrinha", because I don't think it's that simple.
Sorry for the rambling.....
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