The John Danaher Effect: Rapport with Garry Tonon Translates Well to MMA
Despite only being 6-0, Garry Tonon is nearly a household name among the MMA community. After beating names like Gilbert Burns, Mateusz Gamrot, Shinya Aoki, and a laundry list of other names in grappling, Tonon’s made huge waves in the mixed martial arts world by ascending to the top of ONE Championship’s featherweight division, challenging Thanh Le for the belt on March 11th. In his corner is the mastermind of all masterminds: John Danaher. Danaher has been with Tonon for years now and, with his help, has become one of the best martial artist on the planet already and is taking ONE Championship by storm.
John Danaher and Garry Tonon is a match made in heaven: one obsessed trainer and one obsessed fighter. The two conquered the Jiu Jitsu world along with the rest of the Danaher Death Squad. They changed the game and brought a new level to the sport of Jiu Jitsu. They revolutionized leg locks together. Brought the sport to new heights in both skill and popularity. Then in 2018, they set out to conquer mixed martial arts together.
Mixed martial arts is not generally viewed as a team sport. Generally, it’s all about who is in the cage/ring/pit. But, behind that valiant warrior is just that: a team of coaches, sparring partners and more making sure that fighter is at their tip top shape. There’s grappling coaches, striking coaches, strength and conditioning coaches, weight cutting coaches, nutritionists, sparring partners and a smorgasbord of other people that are all experts in their own field. Put bluntly: it requires a village.
And that is exactly what Garry Tonon has found with John Danaher: a village. The knowledge possessed by a single person, John Danaher specifically, is immeasurable. That knowledge has brought Tonon to the highest levels of Jiu Jitsu including a bronze at the ADCC World Championships, two gold medals at the World No-Gi Jiu Jitsu Championships, and many Pan-American championships as well.
The John Danaher Effect: Consistency and Familiarity
What Garry Tonon has going into ONE Championship: Lights Out is a constant coach and familiarity with each other and that’s his biggest asset. It’s not his Jiu Jitsu, which many would assume is what sets Tonon apart. Instead, it’s the comfortability with each other that makes this team work. With Danaher and Tonon working together for so long before the switch to mixed martial arts, the two have developed a chemistry that many fighters take years to get. But for Tonon and Danaher, it is built in from the days that the two have spent ravaging the Jiu Jitsu scene.
This means when Tonon decided to transition over to MMA in 2018, he and John Danaher had a fantastic relationship already. Danaher is a master tactician, brilliant MMA mind in addition to his Jiu Jitsu knowledge, and he and Garry Tonon have worked together for years at this point. The chemistry was built in, and built up, over the course of their time together.
It’s this rapport that Tonon carries over and the two, together, have been perfect in mixed martial arts. At 6-0, Garry Tonon has run through some of ONE Championship’s best fighters and the next one, Thanh Le, is the best one yet. There was no regional MMA for Tonon, he jumped straight into ONE Championship. Straight into the shark pit. His debut: a knockout. Of course, we have seen half of Tonon’s fights finished by submission but I would argue that the two knockouts and a decision were even more impressive. He should win by submission. but he is showing that he and John Danaher are working together to not be a specialist, but an all around MMA fighter. That’s what pushes the sport as a whole forward.
Garry Tonon and John Danaher are a match made in heaven and have been for a long time. Now, the next thing that awaits in Danaher and Tonon’s MMA career is that belt. This weekend, he gets the chance at ONE Championship: Lights Out.
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In addition to covering the ONE Championship for My MMA News, Blaine Henry, the author, also analyzes fights from all combat sports across the globe.
Blaine Henry can be found on Twitter, on his podcast, and Patreon.
