Breaking Down Buchecha vs Gordon Ryan at ADCC, Who Wins and How?

Gordon Ryan and Marcus Buchecha are the two names everybody wants to see in the absolute division. It is possible we could see them face off? That's the one match everybody wants, and if it's going to happen anywhere, it should happen at ADCC. 

Buchecha has won everything there is to win except for the ADCC absolute title. He's been to the finals (2013) and taken third (2017), but this is one gold that eludes him so you've got to think that his sights are set solely on this absolute title. 

It has to be the same for Gordon– he already had one of the greatest debuts in ADCC history by winning the 88kg gold, and he got so close to winning the absolute too, losing to Felipe Pena in the final in 2017. 

An exhausted Buchecha felt the effects of pushing around the 300lb Orlando Sanchez for 40 mins in the +99kg final and followed this up with legend after legend in the absolute– he had a war with Xande Ribeiro in the absolute before he finally faced Felipe Pena in the semifinal, a step too far. Can he save something in his gas tank for the absolute this time? 

If Gordon and Buchecha make it to the final who wins and how? 

It is Buchecha's third time coming to ADCC and he's won everything else there is to win. He has a big size advantage over Gordon, who as we saw against Joao Gabriel Rocha– an athlete that closely matches Buchecha's physical stature– found the bigger man hard to move. 

Gordon is coming off the knee injury that kept him out of action for most of 2019. Will his inactivity be a factor? He's been open about the fact his knee isn't 100% and he pulled out of the IBJJF Heavyweight Grand Prix to save it for ADCC. 

What about the leg locks? Buchecha lost once way back in 2011 to Vinny Magalhaes by heel hook, but has two wins via heel hook of his own. Does he have the technology to keep up with Gordon's razor-sharp leg lock game? 

Buchecha even visited Renzo's one day alongside Felipe Pena and enjoyed a training session under the eye of John Danaher. Of course, they were working heel hooks. You'd have to assume that he knows what's going on, as it's not enough to simply beast-mode out of it. We saw that attempted by Mahamed Aly twice at 2017 and he got caught both times. 

The leg lock game is no secret now and there's no excuse to not know the systems. Buchecha is a good friend of Pena, could he have showed him the escape to back take that he has used twice against Ryan's heel hook attacks?