Garry Tonon: A Bump Up to Top Contender

On Dec. 4 at One Championship: Big Bang, Garry Tonon will make the next progression in his mixed martial arts career. However, a move forward may not mean a great leap up in competition between previous foe Yoshiki Nakahara, and upcoming opponent Koyomi Matsushima. Instead, he views a possible win as a major chance to secure his division standing, and a shot to lay claim as the top contender to Thanh Le and his featherweight championship.

“There’s definitely a bump up in competition. At least from a logical perspective. From a logical perspective, especially from within the organization, Koyomi has actually had a shot at the title before. So having said that, [it] suggests that’s stiff competition potentially,” Tonon told Sherdog. “I think the skillsets [of Nakahara and Matsushima] are slightly different. I would say Koyomi is much more of a wrestler and Nakahara was more of a judo player. So it’s more different, than one is necessarily tougher than the other per se, but I’m still treating this as a very serious fight. As I always would with any of my fights. But even more so maybe than usual, because it leads you to believe; because of the way this fight is set up, this should set me up, if I win, to fight for the title. It’s a really meaningful fight. As far as competition, it’s going to be at least as difficult as the last fight, if not more so.”

Along with dissecting his bout inside the Singapore Indoor Stadium in Kallang, Singapore, the 29-year-old also gave his thoughts on his division’s new champion and potential matchups with former title holder Martin Nguyen and Sage Northcutt in 2021.