In a recent episode of The Charles Eoghan Experience podcast, ADCC veteran Brandon Reed made headlines by confidently asserting that he would outperform Gordon Ryan in a pure wrestling match.
Reed, who transitioned from collegiate wrestling to jiu-jitsu in 2021, revealed that he and Ryan had a previous interaction that sparked this bold claim. According to Reed, the controversy began when Ryan took offense to Reed calling him “weird” for using the term “scrimmage wrestling” instead of “scrambling” in an interview.
“Gordon gets a hold of me calling him weird and he’s like, ‘Brandon, you remember four years ago when I f***ed you up in a 30-minute round?'” Reed recounted. “And he was like, ‘You’re not even good enough to wrestle division one.’ And I was like, ‘You did f*** me up in a 30-minute round.’ It’s very true in jiu-jitsu.”
However, Reed was quick to challenge Ryan‘s assessment of his wrestling abilities.
“If I’m so horrible at wrestling, let’s have a wrestling match,” Reed explained. “I definitely can’t beat [him in] jiu-jitsu. I know that. But you said I was horrible at sports wrestling.”
“I would r*** him, bro. He knows it, too. There’s levels, and I’m like, ‘Bro, you’re not going to be able to just collar tie me for 30 minutes in a wrestling match.'”
The ADCC veteran acknowledged Ryan‘s dominance in jiu-jitsu while maintaining that a pure wrestling contest would yield very different results.
“I’m not going to be like, ‘God, Gordon, let’s have a jiu-jitsu match.’ Like, bro, of course I suck. So, like, I’m learning. But, get that wrestling match going.”
Reed, who competed at ADCC and has been training jiu-jitsu for about four years after transitioning from collegiate wrestling, has been making waves in the grappling community with his wrestling-heavy approach. During the podcast, he also discussed his training methods, his experiences at different gyms around the world, and his thoughts on the differences between wrestling and jiu-jitsu culture.
Whether this match will ever materialize remains to be seen, but Reed‘s challenge has certainly added another interesting chapter to the ongoing discussions about the intersection of wrestling and jiu-jitsu in combat sports.
There are several indicators that Ryan is permanently sidelined by his health issues, but you never know.
