GORDON RYAN

Gordon Ryan is the most dominant no-gi competitor in the history of submission grappling. Born in New Jersey in 1995, Ryan rose to prominence as a member of John Danaher's original Renzo Gracie training group — the so-called Danaher Death Squad — alongside Garry Tonon, Eddie Cummings, and Nicky Ryan. His ADCC debut in 2017 produced gold medals at both his weight class and the absolute division, an unprecedented feat for a first-time competitor, and he has remained the dominant figure in submission-only grappling for the seven years that followed.

Ryan's technical identity is defined by three pillars: a back-control system built around the seatbelt and body triangle that produces strangulations against world-class opposition at near-record rates; a heel-hook game centered on the inside sankaku and the inside-position entries refined within the Danaher leg-lock system; and a positional control framework that allows him to occupy dominant positions for indefinite periods while the submission is set up. His career match record against the absolute division of ADCC — winning gold in 2017, 2019, 2022, and 2024 — is the most decorated run in the history of the tournament.

Ryan moved with John Danaher to Texas in 2021 to form New Wave Jiu Jitsu, the team now considered the most competitively successful no-gi training room in the world. His public persona has been controversial, marked by extensive trash-talking and a famously aggressive social-media presence, but his peers across the sport — including those he has competed against — uniformly rank him among the technically most sophisticated grapplers ever to compete. His health has been a recurring concern due to a chronic stomach condition, but as of the most recent ADCC he remains the undisputed king of submission grappling.