MMA Gospel Radio Interview: Ryan Thomas Talks Ben Askren Part II

Yesterday I posted the first part of our interview with Ryan Thomas that was on MMA Gospel Radio. Today we finish up the interview with the second half. In this part of the interview he talks about his fight with Ben Askren in Bellator, the ref stoppage, Ben himself and his fight which as of this article took place last night. To listen to the unedited interview and to hear the other four guests we had on the show you can go to www.blogtalkradio.com/mmagospel and download it there, get it for free on iTunes or listen directly from this site at www.fighters.com/mmagospel.

MGR: Great behind the scenes stuff that really makes you become a Bellator fan.  Now onto the recent fight with Ben Askren, it was a very close fight back and forth. In the first minute and a half or you used the rubber guard and transitioned into the triangle choke. Can you explain the transition, positioning and how tight you thought it was?

RT: Yeah I was working the rubber guard at first and trying this thing Eddie Bravo calls “The Pyramid” that I had been having a lot of success with lately. I was trying to use that technique and he was posturing up a whole bunch so I couldn’t control him like I wanted to even though I had my legged locked with my hand. He was posturing up so much I thought I would try a hip bump sweep, I posed on one hand and tried to hip heist out and try to flip him over to his back and when I did that he posted his hand down and that gave me the space to turn my hips the other way and go that triangle. That triangle, that thing was deep. I don’t know he got out of that because usually if I can hook their leg and pull myself around at that angle, 99% of the time I finish that triangle. That is what I beat my last opponent Ryan Stout with and he is a really good grappler also. I was really impressed that Ben got out of that choke, I didn’t think he was going anywhere.

He got out of that one and we transitioned a bit more. We had some really good scrambles in that fight both being good high level wrestlers, well he is more high level than me but I am nit to shabby either. He went for that modified guillotine, I forget what he called it, but he didn’t have me. I had space on one side, kicked my top leg back so he couldn’t hook my top leg and make it tighter because he wants both my legs hooked or my top leg. I was just kind of chilling there waiting on his arms to tire out. The thing wasn’t going to get any tighter. I had it framed up really good the only thing that was going to happen was his grip was going to loosen. The next thing I know I feel the referee stick his hand on my chest and I open my eyes and look up and he is waving his hands. He stopped the fight and it was a really bad call because he wasn’t really choking me. His one arm was more on my jaw, not under my chin.

MGR: One of the things that was interesting was afterward the ref said he kept asking you if you were OK but it seemed like it may have been hard for you to hear. Did you hear him say anything to you?

RT: No, I didn’t hear anything. I think my ears were covered and there was a lot going on there when you have an Olympic caliber wrestler torquing on your neck, trying to choke you out. It is kind of hard to listen to anything. When I was pleading my case to the ref, he did not really want to hear my side of the story anyway, but he kept saying “I told you to give me a sign, I told you to give me a sign”. I didn’t hear him say anything to me and then after watching the video he only gave me about a half a second to respond. I would not have had time to react anyway because he gets right there and says something and less than a half a second later he is stopping the fight. What he should have done if he thought I was unconscious was to take my arm and check like Herb Dean and all these other referees do.

MGR: Well you got a free plane trip out it anyways.

RT: Yeah, a free plane trip, an extra $10,000 out of it hopefully and make some extra fans. I probably wouldn’t have been on your radio show if I had just gone out there and won a decision you know. I think everything turned out OK for me.

MGR: After the fight Ben said it was a tainted victory but I had read that in the post-fight conference he kind of went back on his previous statement. Is that right that he kind of went back on that?

RT: Yeah, yeah he did and it really threw me off to because I thought he was going to be cool about everything. When we were in there he told me he knew I didn’t tap and he knew I didn’t pass out or anything. I told him I looked up to him for a long time because we wrestled in college at the same time. We already had the fight so I figured he would be cool and we could get along. At the post-fight conference, an hour and a half later or so, we are in there and then he totally changed his story and tells me I was not going to get of his choke and I need to graciously accept defeat. It looked like I might have been unconscious. He changed his story and just doesn’t want the win taken away because I want to appeal it and I am guessing if he is saying I wasn’t out and I didn’t tap it was probably going to help my case. He knows he can’t beat me otherwise, I am a UFC veteran with a pretty good record so I think he is just kind of looking out for his best interest.

MGR: Now your next fight is against Jacob McClintock and you mentioned it is tough to get good training partners and it is the opposite for him at Arizona Combat Sports. What else do you know about him?

RT: I don’t really know anything about him. everything happened so fast I didn’t even find out I was fighting for sure until yesterday (Tuesday) at about 3 o’clock. Right after that, I was an hour and a half away from home I got the phone call at the gym right before I was getting ready to work out. I worked out finally got home and had to pack all my stuff and hop on an airplane. Today I have busy all day doing medicals and flying so I have not had any time do to any research on him but from what I hear he doesn’t have anything on the internet. He took all his fight videos down, smart move by him. I don’t know much about him but I am going to go in there and do what I came here to do which is fight my ass off.

MGR: Do you have any sponsors or social networking sites you want to mention before we go?

RT: Yeah, if people want to be my friend they can add me on twitter, @ryantankthomas or add me on Facebook or Myspace. My sponsors are Nexxt MMA, Fuel the Fighter.com my nutritionist, El Toro of Danville,IL is a Mexican restaurant that shows my fights.