On August 7th, 2022, the grappling world had one of the most hyped matches in it’s history, Gordon Ryan vs Felipe Pena. This was a no time limit match, first to submission. It ended up being a 44 minute battle, with some interesting exchanges. On today’s video, I’m going to focus on the sweeps. Both sweeps were done by Gordon Ryan.
Both sweeps capitalized on a position we call the Reverse Seat Belt, also known as the Overwrap, Cat/Dog, and the Octopus Guard. A lot of top players like to sit out against half guard, which is a solid strategy. However, you need to make sure you trap their far arm first, which Felipe failed to do both times, and Gordon capitalized on this mistake each time.