Gordon Ryan recently announced that he is stepping away from competition due to persistent health issues. The news quickly reignited the long-running conversation around PED use that has followed him throughout his career. Grappling star Tye Ruotolo also weighed in on the topic during a recent interview.
Ryan is widely regarded as one of the most decorated competitors in the history of Brazilian jiu-jitsu. His long list of titles and victories over elite opposition placed him at the very top of the sport, but his legacy has always carried an asterisk within the grappling community.
Ryan has openly admitted to using PEDs during his career, arguing that doing so was not a violation of any rules, given that professional grappling largely operates without PED testing.
That position has put him at odds with a number of prominent competitors, among them Tye Ruotolo and his brother Kade, both of whom have been vocal about their decision to compete clean.
For Tye Ruotolo, the retirement news is bittersweet: respect for what Ryan accomplished on the mat, tempered by genuine frustration over the conditions under which those achievements were reached.
“For my perspective, it’s a little salty because I’ve had to take a rough route in the sense where I’ve had to compete against these guys on st**oids,” Ruotolo said. “Giving up weight, giving up everything that comes along with taking all the [PEDs] and everything. It’s a little salty from my point of view because it affects your longevity, too.”
Ruotolo continued: “I feel like he’d have a lot more years in the sport if maybe had he kept a cleaner lifestyle. I don’t know what his lifestyle is, I can’t speak on it too much. I just know that ste**ids are not good for longevity for sure. That’s just a proven fact. I h*te to see it with the kids more than anything. I just think it’s not the best example for the next generation.”
Ruotolo is not naive about the environment in which these conversations take place. He acknowledges that PED use at the highest levels of jiu-jitsu is widespread, and that the pressure on young competitors to conform can be significant. He knows this firsthand.
“Even for me, my exposure to people wanting to give me st**oids from such a young age in the sport of jiu-jitsu was really unbelievable,” Ruotolo said. “It’s something I really couldn’t believe. It’s not something that I want the younger generation to feel they need to do what he did. A part of me has a little bit of saltiness in that manner but all the best to him and his life. Hopefully he can come back and get healthy so I can get a crack at him one day.”
Ruotolo’s critique is not rooted in personal animosity toward Ryan. It comes from a genuine concern for fair competition and from a belief that normalizing PED use sends the wrong message to the next generation of athletes coming up through the sport.
One rationalization Ruotolo has heard repeatedly is that everyone at the top level is using, which makes the practice feel justified for those who choose to go that route. He pushes back on that idea directly.
“I think maybe it makes more sense in those guys’ heads because they say ‘everybody’s on st**oids,'” Ruotolo said. “The reality is everybody’s not. A lot of people are. That’s why I think it would be cool if there were two different organizations. One clean and one dirty. So it’s like ‘Gordon, you can go compete it in the dirty organization, and the clean guys can have a clean organization.’ It’s not really realistic with funding and everything, but if that was a possibility, I think it would change the sport a lot. It would change a lot for sure.”
The proposal sounds straightforward on the surface but runs into immediate practical obstacles, as Ruotolo himself concedes.
