Gordon Ryan Reveals Why He Started Talking Trash

Gordon Ryan is one of jiu-jitsu’s most polarizing figures. A multiple-time ADCC champion and considered by many to be the current top pound-for-pound no-gi competitor on the planet, Ryan hasn’t shied away from sharing his opinion or talking trash to other competitors.

In a recent appearance on the Lex Fridman Podcast, Ryan revealed the impetus for his trash talk.

The reason I actually started talking s*** was actually, indirectly, because of Georges [St-Pierre]… I won my first EBI. I didn’t talk shit and everyone was like ‘he only beat Yuri [Simoes] because he was tired,’ or this or that… and I’m trying to figure out what I’m gonna do. So I’m scrolling through Georges’ feed one day and he posted a clip of him beating someone. And I look at the comments, with this in mind — Georges is the nicest person of all time. And if you look at the comments, it’s 10,000 comments and like 9,900 are just people calling him, like, ‘all you do is lay and pray you p****, you suck, you can’t finish anybody.’ And I’m looking at this, and I’m like, people are gonna say what they’re gonna say regardless. They’re gonna talk shit regardless so you may as well just say what you want and be yourself.

According to Ryan, it was the incessant hate that his longtime training partner and all-time MMA great Georges St-Pierre received that motivated Ryan to start talking trash. He’ll receive hate either way, so why not have a little fun along the way?

Ryan has not competed since an October 2021 exhibition match against Philip Rowe. He is expected to compete at the 2022 ADCC Championships, where he will not only compete in the heavyweight division, but also in one of the sport’s most anticipated superfights against Andre Galvao.