“What they’re doing has been incredible,”
Gordon Ryan explained.
“They have some big matches. If nothing else, they’re putting on good enough shows to have to give FloGrappling and One Championship some competition, so it’s always good for the athletes.”
Gordon Ryan emphasized how competition between promotions benefits MMA stars financially.
“The athletes can at least at the bare minimum bounce offers off the UFC, off One, off Flo and use it to get paid more. So if nothing else, it’ll help the athletes,”
he said. The financial evolution of jiu-jitsu has been dramatic during Gordon Ryan‘s career. When he started to compete 15 years ago, monetary opportunities were virtually nonexistent.
“When I got my black belt 10 years ago, in order to get money you’d have to do a Grapplers Quest and beat like two world champions or an ADCC champion to win a thousand dollars for absolute,”
Gordon Ryan recalled. The landscape has transformed significantly.
“Now we’re at a point where you have multiple athletes making six figures for matches,”
Gordon Ryan noted.
“For jiu-jitsu that’s unheard of. It’s definitely getting there. The question is can we keep the trajectory moving in the right direction?”
However, Gordon Ryan pointed out a critical difference between the UFC’s approach and traditional grappling formats. UFC BJJ uses three five-minute rounds similar to MMA, rather than the continuous 15 or 25-minute matches common in pure grappling events.
“In grappling it takes a lot longer to work into a position of advantage,”
Gordon Ryan explained.
“Because of the fact that it in general moves much slower, the fact that the rounds are happening means to submit a good guy on your level within five minutes is a pretty hard thing to do.”
Gordon Ryan believes the round structure will result in fewer submissions. Looking ahead, Gordon Ryan identified the contest for dominance in no-gi jiu-jitsu over the next decade.
“I think the next 10 years it will be a battle between mostly Americans and Russians,”
he predicted, suggesting that as more money enters the sport, elite wrestlers from Dagestan and Russia may increasingly migrate to submission grappling.
While Gordon Ryan continues managing his new school Kingsway in Austin and dealing with ongoing stomach issues, he has his sights set on ADCC 2026 as a potential return to compete. For now, he remains focused on developing the next generation of grapplers while watching the sport he helped elevate continue its financial growth.
