Gordon Ryan: Portrait of the King of No-Gi Grappling

Some athletes dominate their sport. Gordon Ryan rewrote his. One hundred and two wins, five losses, six years without a defeat. An ADCC absolute belt taken from André Galvão. Then a career stopped at 30 by a stomach that would no longer follow. The profile of a king who left the throne standing, before ending up on the floor in Krakow, under the fists of a group of Kazakhs.

Las Vegas, 18 September 2022. Gordon Ryan has just won the ADCC +99 kg division by submitting Nick Rodriguez in the final. Most athletes would head back to the hotel. He had demanded a second match the same weekend: the superfight for the absolute belt, against André Galvão. The Atos boss had held that title since 2011. The match is one-way traffic: 12-0 on the scoreboard, then Ryan takes the back, locks his rear naked choke and Galvão taps in the sixteenth minute. Nobody had ever won a weight division and the superfight belt in the same year. That night, the debate about the greatest no-gi grappler in history is closed. Gordon Ryan is 27.

This profile covers the whole journey. First the New Jersey garbage collector turned prodigy, then the meeting with John Danaher. Then the leg lock revolution, the three ADCCs and the illness that stopped everything. Finally, that Saturday in September 2026 when the retired king threw himself into a matside brawl to defend his student.

In this article12

1. Gordon Ryan at a glance
2. Gordon Ryan’s origins: a New Jersey kid who collected garbage
3. Gordon Ryan’s rise: from EBI to ADCC in eighteen months
4. Gordon Ryan’s record: the numbers of a reign
5. Gordon Ryan’s game: a system, not a collection of techniques
6. Gordon Ryan, Danaher, GSP and the Austin laboratory
7. Gordon Ryan and illness: a career built against his own body
8. Gordon Ryan in Krakow, 12 September 2026: the king in the brawl
9. The character: provocateur, businessman, teacher
10. Gordon Ryan’s legacy: a before and an after
11. FAQ: Gordon Ryan
12. Conclusion: the king is gone, the system remains

Gordon Ryan at a glance

Gordon Ryan’s origins: a New Jersey kid who collected garbage

Gordon Ryan was born on 8 July 1995 in Monroe, New Jersey. Nothing predestined him for grappling: no wrestling father, no family dojo, no college champion past. He discovered jiu-jitsu at 15 with a local instructor, Miguel Benitez. Then Tom DeBlass, one of the most respected grapplers on the East Coast, took over his training. A few months later, a four-stripe white belt, he met Garry Tonon, then a young brown belt and DeBlass’s most promising student. The two became friends, and when Tonon started teaching at Brunswick BJJ, Ryan followed his classes.

The detail people forget is that Gordon Ryan was, for a long time, an ordinary practitioner with a day job on the side. In 2015 he was still a garbage collector. Yet that year, as a brown belt, he decided to bet everything on the mat. He quit his job, won the Newaza Challenge, then the IBJJF No-Gi Worlds at his belt. His six-month run convinced everyone. In February 2016, Garry Tonon awarded him the black belt, his first as an instructor. DeBlass, Ricardo Almeida and John Danaher were present, and Danaher co-signed the promotion.

Meeting John Danaher: the absolute turning point

From purple belt, Ryan regularly travelled to New York to train under John Danaher at the Renzo Gracie Academy. Danaher is a character apart. A New Zealander, a former philosophy student at Columbia, a nightclub bouncer turned coach, he teaches jiu-jitsu the way one builds a proof. No accumulation of isolated techniques, but complete systems where each position leads to the next. His elite group, the Danaher Death Squad, then included Garry Tonon, Eddie Cummings and Nicky Ryan. Craig Jones and Nick Rodriguez arrived later.

Ryan himself has placed his breakthrough in that period, between brown and black belt, when he started beating established ADCC champions in the training room. The relationship quickly went beyond coach and athlete. Danaher found in Ryan the ideal test subject for his theories; Ryan found in Danaher the intellectual framework he had been missing. Ten years later, despite two relocations and a team that blew apart, the two have never stopped working together.

Gordon Ryan’s rise: from EBI to ADCC in eighteen months

His first year at black belt looked like a demonstration. In April 2016 he won EBI 6 in the absolute, beating Yuri Simoes along the way, a gi world champion and future two-time ADCC winner. He followed with EBI 8 (-84 kg) the same year, then EBI 11 (-77 kg) and EBI 14 (absolute) in 2017. Four Eddie Bravo Invitational tournaments in three different divisions. In between, he also submitted Keenan Cornelius with a heel hook in a superfight. The American submission-only circuit had found its star. His stage name, “The Iron Dragon”, soon became “The King”, a title he gave himself.

What stands out in those first two years is also the losses, because there were some. A Grappling Industries final lost on points to Tex Johnson. A superfight lost by rear naked choke to Felipe Pena in 2016. A 4-0 defeat against Leandro Lo in a superfight at the 2017 ADCC trials. Those setbacks have documentary value: they show an athlete still vulnerable to the points game. The Danaher system would fix that, match after match.

2017: ADCC as a worldwide revelation

The ADCC Submission Fighting World Championship is grappling’s most prestigious competition, held every two years. In September 2017 in Espoo, Finland, Ryan arrived at 22 in the -88 kg division, considered an outsider. He beat Dillon Danis, choked Romulo Barral, passed Xande Ribeiro in the semi-final and submitted Keenan Cornelius in the final with a mounted guillotine. ADCC world champion at his first attempt.

He did not stop there and entered the absolute the next day. He heel-hooked Roberto “Cyborg” Abreu, then choked his own teammate Craig Jones, then Mahamed Aly. In the final, however, he fell to Felipe Pena, 6-0. Gold and silver at a first ADCC: Kingsway today calls it the best debut in the event’s history. For the worldwide community, the question was no longer “who is this kid?” but “who can stop him?”.

2018-2019: the clean sweep and the double

2018 was the year he took over the IBJJF no-gi circuit. At the No-Gi Pans he won his division and the absolute, every win by submission, including Kaynan Duarte in the final. At the No-Gi Worlds he doubled again, with an 11-0 over Yuri Simoes in the semi-final. In between, he led Team Alpha Male to victory at Quintet 3 in Japan, submitting Josh Barnett, Marcos Souza, Craig Jones and Vitor Shaolin in a row. His last career loss dates from that year, though: a points decision against Vinny Magalhães at ACB 13. He would never lose again.

In September 2019 ADCC returned to Anaheim and Ryan moved up to -99 kg. He choked Ben Hodgkinson and Tim Spriggs, beat Lucas “Hulk” Barbosa 3-0, then submitted Vinicius “Trator” Ferreira in the final. In the absolute he went through Pedro Marinho (heel hook), his friend Garry Tonon and Lachlan Giles. In the final he met Marcus “Buchecha” Almeida, thirteen-time gi world champion. A closed match, 0-0 after overtime, decided on penalties in Ryan’s favour. The weight-and-absolute double, achieved before him by a handful of legends, entered his record at 24.

2022: the night in Las Vegas

Between 2019 and 2022, Ryan went through a complicated period we will return to: illness, a temporary retirement, the explosion of the Death Squad. Yet when he arrived at ADCC 2022 in Las Vegas, he had picked up the thread. Jacob Couch and Pedro Marinho were beaten at WNO. Then Felipe Pena, his old rival, verbally submitted in a 2022 superfight. Revenge for the 2016 and 2017 losses was complete.

In Las Vegas he was scheduled for a single match: the superfight against André Galvão for the absolute belt. He nevertheless asked organiser Mo Jassim to enter the +99 kg division as well. An unprecedented request, but granted. He choked Heikki Jussila, beat Victor Hugo 8-0, submitted Roosevelt Sousa, then Nick Rodriguez with an outside heel hook in the final. A few hours later, closing the night, he choked Galvão. The first athlete in history to win a weight division and the absolute superfight in the same year. He was not yet 28.

2024: the last matches, with no training camp

ADCC 2024, at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, was his final appearance. He fought two superfights in two days. First Felipe Pena, beaten 2-0. Then Yuri Simoes, crushed 21-0 for the absolute belt. We later learned he had not been able to train hard since January 2024. In his own words, he was operating at a fraction of his capacity. That 21-0 over a two-time ADCC champion remains, to this day, the last image of Gordon Ryan the competitor.

Gordon Ryan’s record: the numbers of a reign

The story above sets the tempo. The raw numbers deserve a box of their own. To compare with other reigns in BJJ history, see our profiles of Marcelo Garcia and Roger Gracie, the two names that come up most often in the greatest-of-all-time debate.

Gordon Ryan’s game: a system, not a collection of techniques

What sets Gordon Ryan apart from almost all his contemporaries is that his game is not a catalogue of brilliant moves. It is a system designed end to end. Each position leads to the next, and each submission sits within a hierarchy of threats. If you are trying to build your own style, his path is a textbook case. He started as a heel hook and kimura trap specialist, then widened piece by piece until there was no hole left.

The back: 32 rear naked chokes in his career

Back control is the most dominant position in jiu-jitsu, and Ryan made it his domain. He knows how to get there from anywhere. Above all, he knows how to stay there under constant pressure and chain strangle attempts with surgical precision. His rear naked choke is the most basic submission in BJJ. In reality it is a mechanism of extreme finesse: arm angle, head pressure, hip control, timing of the finish. Thirty-two of his eighty-two black belt submissions are rear naked chokes, Galvão and Barral included.

Leg locks: the Death Squad revolution

With Danaher, Tonon and Eddie Cummings, Ryan was one of the architects of the leg attack revolution in modern no-gi. The Death Squad system made methodical what had been marginal: entries from guard, control positions such as ashi garami and the saddle, then the hierarchy of finishes, above all the heel hook, long considered too dangerous to teach. Nineteen of his career submissions are heel hooks. Cornelius, Cyborg, Marinho and Nick Rodriguez, in the ADCC 2022 final, all paid the price.

His contribution goes beyond the mat. Through his instructionals, the best-selling on BJJ Fanatics, he spread an understanding of leg locks that transformed no-gi worldwide. Academies everywhere integrated those concepts. The heel hook rule eventually changed too: it has been allowed in IBJJF no-gi since 2021 for brown and black belts, after being banned across the board a few years earlier.

Passing: domination from the top

Reduced to his image as a back and leg specialist, Ryan is nonetheless one of the best passers of his generation. His passing combines body lock, knee slice and leg drag. Above all, his reading of the opponent’s reactions lets him convert every defence into an entry on the legs or the back. That completeness is what sets him apart. Most champions build their dominance on one or two strengths. He developed a game with no obvious gap, including on the feet: his instructionals on wrestling and the front headlock show late but serious work.

Defence: the piece nobody looks at

Ryan has often explained that his confidence came first from his escapes. As a brown belt he realised he was almost impossible to pin or submit in the room, and that is the day he started believing he could be the best in the world. In ten years at black belt he has conceded a single submission, to Pena in 2016. His “Pillars of Defense” series on BJJ Fanatics covers pin, strangle and leg lock escapes. It is probably the least spectacular part of his catalogue, and the most useful for an amateur practitioner.

Gordon Ryan, Danaher, GSP and the Austin laboratory

To understand Gordon Ryan you have to understand the ecosystem he grew up in. The Renzo Gracie Academy in New York in the 2010s was a unique place. John Danaher trained both the Death Squad grapplers and top MMA fighters there, including Georges St-Pierre and Chris Weidman. GSP, a jiu-jitsu black belt often cited as the greatest MMA fighter in history, has been a Danaher student since the 2000s and never stopped training after retiring. He rolled regularly with Ryan: in New York, in Puerto Rico in 2021, then in Austin in 2022.

The Canadian’s verdict says it all, since he has also shared the mat with Roger Gracie and Braulio Estima: “It’s like grappling with a gorilla. He’s the best guy I’ve ever rolled with.” In January 2022 the three men spent more than three hours together on Lex Fridman’s podcast, one of the most listened-to episodes ever devoted to grappling. Ryan explains there how his confidence was built on evidence accumulated in the room, not on talk.

July 2021: the Death Squad blows up

In July 2021 the team had relocated to Puerto Rico during the pandemic. That is where John Danaher announced the end of the Danaher Death Squad, citing the location of a future gym, personality conflicts and diverging values, as well as tension between the team’s brand and those of its members. Craig Jones, Nick Rodriguez, Ethan Crelinsten and Nicky Ryan, Gordon’s own brother, left to found the B-Team in Austin. Danaher, Ryan, Tonon and Oliver Taza settled in the same city under the name New Wave Jiu-Jitsu.

The start was hard: a depleted team, no gym, a sick star considering retirement. Yet new athletes arrived, notably Giancarlo Bodoni, Nicholas Meregali and Luke Griffith. The group gave itself a year to prepare ADCC 2022. The result is known. In April 2025 New Wave was renamed Kingsway Jiu-Jitsu, and in the summer of 2025 Ryan opened his own gym in Austin, with Danaher and Tonon as co-founders. For the first time, the king had a physical kingdom.

Gordon Ryan and illness: a career built against his own body

The record takes on another dimension when you know the conditions it was built in. In 2018, recurring staph infections, common among grapplers, earned him repeated courses of antibiotics. His gut flora never recovered. He developed severe digestive disorders, first diagnosed as gastroparesis, then attributed to bacterial and fungal overgrowth. Nausea, vomiting, an inability to eat normally. He spoke about it publicly under the name “Belly Ache Chronicles”, and that candour earned him a form of respect even among his detractors.

In May 2021 he announced a first retirement, unable to maintain a decent training level. He came back a year later for ADCC 2022, which he dominated as if he had never been away. But from January 2024 he could no longer train or lift hard without vomiting. His two superfights at ADCC 2024 were fought with no camp. He won them anyway.

February 2026: “I am done”

On 16 February 2026, ten years to the day after his black belt, Gordon Ryan published a long message on Instagram. He wrote that the day marked ten years at black belt, ten years at the top of the sport, and “the probable end of my competitive career”. He went on to detail the course of his illness, specifying that his body was otherwise healthy and his technical skills sharper than ever. Then he concluded: “For now, I can confidently say, I am done.” Gordon Ryan was 30. Three days earlier, he had still been talking about a return at ADCC 2026.

The ambiguity is part of the character. A few weeks after the announcement, videos showed him rolling at Kingsway. He still leaves the door ajar should the medical problem ever be solved. But the competitive reality is clear. Since May 2025, WNO had already stripped him of his no-gi world championship belt, without a loss, for failing to defend it. He was therefore not at ADCC 2026 as an athlete. His 21-0 over Simoes remains his last match.

Gordon Ryan in Krakow, 12 September 2026: the king in the brawl

Gordon Ryan was indeed at the Tauron Arena in Krakow for ADCC 2026, the first held in Europe since 2017. But he was in the corner, as a Kingsway coach. On day one, his student Dorian Olivarez, one of the -66 kg favourites, faced Kazakhstan’s Bekzat Kapashov in the round of 16. The match was electric. Kapashov bit Olivarez on the hand during a strangle attempt; Olivarez answered with a slap. The referee restarted them, and Olivarez ended up submitting his opponent.

After the handshake, around ten members of the Kazakh delegation went after Olivarez, his father Mike and John Danaher. Ryan was coaching Dominic Mejia on the neighbouring mat. He saw the numbers and crossed over. He was immediately taken to the floor, hit by five or six men by his own count, then kicked. Officials finally separated everyone, after about a minute. He got up and went back to coaching his match. He later gave his version in a video, calling the scuffle the best fight of the night and thanking “the Kazakh guys for the scrap”.

The sanctions followed quickly. Olivarez and Kapashov were disqualified and suspended for a year by ADCC. Olivarez’s father was banned from coaching for two years, and Owen Jones took the place in the bracket. No serious injuries, but an image that went around the world within hours. It sums up the character rather well: a 31-year-old retiree, the greatest record in the event’s history, throwing himself into a melee heavily outnumbered, all so as not to leave his coach and his student alone. A twist of the calendar: FloGrappling later confirmed he had been prepared as a backup replacement for the Kaynan Duarte vs Yuri Simoes superfight, should either withdraw. The king was never far from the mat.

The character: provocateur, businessman, teacher

Gordon Ryan never tried to be liked. He proclaimed himself king. He fuelled public rivalries with Felipe Pena, Craig Jones, André Galvão and the B-Team. His positions on social media, about jiu-jitsu or anything else, regularly divided the community. He owns it: criticism energises him, he says, and serves as fuel. That mix of extraordinary talent and a taste for confrontation made him the most talked-about grappling athlete in history, no small thing for a sport that was played in front of a few hundred people when he started.

He also understood before anyone else the economic value of his position. His BJJ Fanatics catalogue runs to more than fifty titles, the largest of any instructor on the platform and one of the pillars of his business model. He signed with ONE Championship in 2021, then debuted on UFC Fight Pass in 2022 against Nick Rodriguez, and worked as grappling coach for Jon Jones before his fight with Stipe Miocic. What Gordon Ryan proved, beyond the medals, is that a grappler could fill arenas and sell systems, and make a very good living from his art without going through MMA.

Gordon Ryan’s legacy: a before and an after

Ryan’s influence goes far beyond his results. Before the Death Squad, leg locks were a curiosity for a few specialists. Today they are part of the core curriculum of most serious academies, and the rulebooks have followed. No-gi was long considered the poor relation of the gi. With him it gained a prestige comparable, if not superior, in the eyes of part of the community. The explosion of grappling audiences since 2018, of which UFC BJJ is the most visible consequence, owes much to his ability to build anticipation around every match.

On method, he imposed the idea that jiu-jitsu is learned through principles and systems, explaining the why before the how. That approach, inherited from Danaher, reached hundreds of thousands of practitioners through his instructionals and changed the way a whole generation thinks about and teaches the sport. And the story continues by proxy: in Krakow, his Kingsway students were on the mats, with him in the corner.

FAQ: Gordon Ryan

How many ADCC titles has Gordon Ryan won? Three division titles (2017 at -88 kg, 2019 at -99 kg, 2022 at +99 kg) and one absolute tournament title (2019). He also holds two absolute superfight belts (2022 against André Galvão, 2024 against Yuri Simoes), plus an absolute silver medal in 2017. He is the only athlete to have won a weight division and the absolute superfight in the same year.

Why did Gordon Ryan retire? He announced his retirement on 16 February 2026, at 30, because of chronic digestive disorders that appeared in 2018 after courses of antibiotics for staph infections. He explained he had been unable to train intensively since January 2024. Gordon Ryan remains an instructor at Kingsway Jiu-Jitsu in Austin.

Who is Gordon Ryan’s coach? John Danaher, former coach at the Renzo Gracie Academy in New York and of Georges St-Pierre. Ryan has worked with him since purple belt. His black belt, however, was awarded in February 2016 by Garry Tonon, with Danaher as co-signatory. His first instructors were Miguel Benitez and Tom DeBlass.

What is Gordon Ryan’s competition record? According to BJJ Heroes, 102 wins, 5 losses and 3 draws at black belt, with 82 wins by submission (80%). His losses date from 2016 to 2018 (Tex Johnson, Felipe Pena, Leandro Lo, Felipe Pena, Vinny Magalhães). He then stayed unbeaten from 2019 to 2024.

What happened with Gordon Ryan at ADCC 2026? On 12 September 2026 in Krakow, a brawl broke out matside after his student Dorian Olivarez beat Bekzat Kapashov. Ryan, present as a coach, stepped in against the Kazakh delegation and was hit on the floor. Olivarez and Kapashov were then disqualified and suspended for a year by ADCC.

Is Gordon Ryan the greatest grappler of all time? In no-gi the consensus is broad: three ADCCs in three different divisions, two absolute belts, six years without a loss and 80% of wins by submission. Across all formats, the debate remains open with Roger Gracie and Marcelo Garcia, who dominated in the gi with the same authority.

Conclusion: the king is gone, the system remains

Gordon Ryan did not get the exit the greats are supposed to have. No announced last match, no farewell tour. Just an Instagram post on a Monday in February, and a body that said stop before the head did. That is exactly what makes his story different. The densest record in grappling history was built, for half of it, by a sick athlete.

What will remain, beyond the titles, is an idea he embodied better than anyone. Jiu-jitsu is mastered through intelligence as much as athleticism, and the system comes before the isolated technique. In the history of Brazilian jiu-jitsu there will be a before and an after Gordon Ryan, not only because he won, but because he changed the way the whole world thinks about its sport.

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