Gordon Ryan is an American Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt. He is widely regarded as one of the best jiu-jitsu competitors of his generation, having won numerous championships and accolades in no-gi competitions.
Ryan is known for his technical proficiency, physical dominance, and overwhelming style of grappling. Outside of competition, he is also a highly sought-after coach and instructor, and has developed a large following on social media platforms.
He’s been busy helping promote ADCC events that are expected to premier on UFC’s streaming service later this spring. Ryan accompanied ADCC promoter Mo Jassim on a tour to Kazakhstan recently and talked a little bit about where he sees the sport going. He told media at the AIGA presser:
“The fact that most jujitsu guys are just terrible at wrestling. And we also have to exploit the fact that wrestling under an ADCC of ruleset is completely different and far as scoring criteria and rule sets than it is in collegiate wrestling or freestyle wrestling.”
“So we have to be able to take things that are applicable from freestyle, from from Greco, from different forms of wrestling, and apply that and adapt those to our sport.”
“And so in the next decade, you will see a large, much more integration between standing and ground grappling, going from standing to ground and ground of standing. And you’re you’re seeing that already.”
“And I think that once Grapplers can effectively put good guys down, can hold good guys down, and can start with classical jujitsu sweeps and then move the guys bought or hand to the ground and then move into situations where they come up and they start with a classical jujitsu sweep, but finish with a wrestling takedown.”
“I think that’s going to take the sport to the next level. And I think so. Over the last five years, you saw the integration of leg locks into the sport and the next five years you’re going to see the combination of standing in ground and ground grappling to to start winning high profile matches.”
