Gordon Ryan has long been the biggest star in competitive jiu-jitsu because or despite his flamboyant personality. Ryan made his name after winning EBI Absolutes after a series of huge names in jiu-jitsu declined to participate due to how the payment is structured in the competition.
He’s been racking up huge victories ever since and has racked up impressive 5 medals at bjj’s most prestigious competition – ADCC .
Ryan won 88kg, 99kg, over 99kg and Absolute divisions and had a silver medal in Absolute on his first try in 2017.
Ryan has long teased transitioning to both gi bjj and MMA at various times but nothing came of it. In part due to his success selling jiu-jitsu instructional and in part due to his long health struggle with what turned out to be a fungal infection in his intestines.
After ADCC Ryan gave a locker room interview explaining what’s next for him.
“I think, John wants me to stay with grappling and John’s never been wrong about anything. I think I think the grappling for now, you know, we’ll see where we go.”
Ryan also gave one more interesting nugget revealing that ADCC might be happening again next year (because ADCC 2021 was delayed to 2022).
“It’s hard for me to stay under 230lbs, but if for whatever reason I end up around this weight next year, I’m going to ask them to do that to 270 and plus, 270lbs – 99kg and over 99 and a fight. But I might be too big for that so I might just end up doing 99 plus and then I’ll see if they let me do the absolute.”
Ryan has been under contract with ONE FC since May of 2021. While the contract is for MMA, ONE FC mostly utilized Ryan’s social media following to advertise their events in an attempt to break into the US scene.
But there’s always been a discrepancy between Gordon Ryan’s way to market himself by being the most obnoxious person possible online and what ONE FC claims are their values.
While Ryan has made a lot of different comments raging from tracking all his haters and putting them on blast to making inappropriate comments about another competitors child ONE’s main goal was to promote “values of integrity, humility, honor, respect, courage, discipline, and compassion“.
Now this is also somewhat of a cop out considering their youtube thumbnails are wildly disrespectful and clearly an attempt to capture an audience any way possible.
MyMMANews was the first to confirm Ryan is no longer under contract with ONE FC.
BREAKING: Gordon Ryan is no longer under contract with ONE Championship.
Story coming to @MyMMANews
— Blaine Henry (@BlaineHenryTFL) October 1, 2022
Ryan was affected by his ONE FC contract in one way. Thanks to ONE FC seeing UFC as their main competition Ryan was unable to participate in any contests that are facilitated by UFC on FP including Eddie Bravo invitational, Fury Grappling and Combat jiu-jitsu.
Fans online had interesting reactions to the news.
Another thing interesting to note is that ONE FC is veering a lot more into grappling, and even sponsored this year’s ADCC.
It’s hard to pinpoint what led to the detriment of the relationship. It’s likely a financial ordeal considering ONE FC unveiled record breaking financial losses in 2021. Not to mention that pretty much 70% of ADCC participants would agree to participate in any ONE FC events at a fraction of the cost of Gordon Ryan. Besides Ryan and Felipe Pena it’s hard to see any grappler break the bank barring perhaps B Team’s Craig Jones and NIcky Rod.