In late 2017, Gordon Ryan was fresh off his first ADCC gold medal and only just beginning his journey to becoming the most dominant and well-known no-gi grappler in the world. He was 22-years old, and despite already owning plenty of accomplishments between the ADCC championship and a pair of
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John Danaher might be the coach to the best current (or ever) no-gi grappler on the planet, Gordon Ryan. However, he’s not calling Ryan the greatest overall jiu-jitsu player ever; that distinction goes to Roger Gracie. In a recent appearance on the Lex Fridman Podcast, Danaher answered the question of
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Although Brazilian jiu-jitsu is relatively young as a competitive sport, a few people have attempted to objectively chronicle the history of the competition side of BJJ. One of those people is ADCC champion Robert Drysdale, who, along with the publication of his book “Opening Closed-Guard: The Origins of Jiu-Jitsu in
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We are now one week away from Who’s Number One (WNO), headlined by a thirty-minute submission-only match between Vagner Rocha and current no-gi pound-for-pound king Gordon Ryan. It’s an intriguing match-up between one of the sport’s most physical and tough grapplers in Rocha against arguably the sport’s most precise technician
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As an organized competitive sport, Brazilian jiu-jitsu is still quite young. That said, there are a handful of legends in the sport’s brief history. One of those legends is three-time black belt world champion Vitor “Shaolin” Ribeiro. Get to know Ribeiro in a new six-minute documentary exploring Ribeiro’s roots in
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Rayron Gracie, son of the late Ryan Gracie, recently released a 28-minute documentary titled “Letters To My Father.” A warning upfront: this could get the tears flowing. The documentary details Rayron’s early childhood and relationship with his father, as well as the heartbreaking moment when he learned at age six
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Forget about ‘Red Belt’ or Nicholas Cages’ ‘Jiu Jitsu’ movie – there’s a new BJJ movie in the works that I’m sure many of the BJJ community will be interested to watch – ‘O Faixa Preta’. Rumours started circling of the film in 2019, but now it is actually in
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American black belt and 3x world champion Michael Musumeci has made history and broke a world record (yet to be confirmed by Guinness world records) that’s been unbeaten for the past 20 years. And the fastest submission during an IBJJF male adult black belt final, goes to Michael Musumeci with
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The road to black belt is one every white belt begins, but few manage to complete. It really is a huge accomplishment, and I’m 100% positive every black belt has faced a few hurdles along the way – they just chose to keep going. After seeing Michael D’aguiar recently receive
Read moreThe Rear Naked Choke is one of the most common submissions in MMA but seeing it come from a standing position is significantly less likely. The above video starts with Jan Blachowicz countering a takedown attempt by Devin Clark and reaching over his back to lock up the choke, getting
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