(A playlist
of the matches used for this article can be found here.)
Brandon Ruiz is the single most decorated grappler
in the field, and you’ve probably never heard of him. A partial list of his
accolades includes a silver medal in Greco-Roman wrestling at the 2004 Pan
American Games and six medals in the FILA/United World Wrestling Grappling
World Championships from 2009-2017, including a gold medal in 2011 and two
silvers in 2009. (There are two World Championships listed for the year, one in
Ft Lauderdale, Florida and another a week later in Lucerne, Switzerland, and if
someone could explain this to me I would really appreciate it because I have no
clue.) He was a resident athlete at the US Olympic Training Center for four
years and was a varsity wrestler for Brigham Young University, and has numerous
other medals in submission grappling and Brazilian Jujitsu. Simply put, Brandon
Ruiz can wrestle his ass off.
Watch Ruiz for just a few minutes, and the high
level Greco experience is quickly apparent. He’s an excellent handfighter who
uses a wide range of techniques to open up his offense – snapdowns, two on
ones, arm drags, underhooks, etc. – and displays great patience. Even in short
time limit matches, he doesn’t force bad techniques or bad positions. He works
his game until he creates an opening, and then capitalizes. Most of the time,
that opening is his underhook creating space for a very un-Greco-like blast
double, though I saw him absolutely plant Sean Spangler with a double leg off a
beautiful arm drag, and he’s got some bodylocks and a foot sweep he’ll chain
off of the double if need be, too.
Defensively, he’s fine. He can be taken down if
someone gets to his hips and he won’t pull out the miracle escapes you see the
real defensive wizards do, but that adept handfighting and attention to detail
means he doesn’t beat himself and doesn’t leave easy openings. You have to put
in the work to get Ruiz off his feet.
My big complaint with Ruiz comes on the mat, where
I don’t think he applies the kind of top pressure he could and should.
Contrasted with Josh Barnett, Ruiz spends a lot of time with his knees on the
mat, often in close to his opponent in a very BJJ-like side control. He’s very
mobile on the mat, and adept at changing up his ride to follow an opponent
trying to move and escape, but he leaves a lot of space for those moves and
escapes to play out. On more than one occasion I saw him give up his back in a
way I didn’t think he had to as a result of that lack of pressure. Possible he’ll
tighten up that aspect of his game to account for the pinfall in catch, but it’s
definitely something to look out for.
I like Ruiz as a finisher. He’s got a good series
of guillotine and D’arce-like head-and-arm chokes he employs off of a front
headlock and can use to improve positions as well as finish. I saw a nasty,
opportunistic toe hold and defense-to-offense double wristlock, as well. More
than the techniques, though, Ruiz knows how to crank up the intensity when he’s
looking for a finish. There’s a balancing act between committing and
overcommitting, and Ruiz has the timing to flip the switch from his relaxed and
patient working for openings to deciding this is his chance to get his man out
of there.
I have Ruiz as a slight favorite to go over
Barnett in the finals. If he gets trapped underneath, well, smaller men than
Josh Barnett have ridden him out, but Ruiz has a better takedown game than
Barnett does and a very strong submission game. He’s got a literally huge
potential speed bump in the semis before he gets that far, but if I were a
betting man (and I am not a betting man), Ruiz is where I’d put my money.
Tomorrow! We'll talk about that potential speed bump... as much as we can, given how very little footage there is of Kenny Lester.
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