BJJ icon Gordon Ryan recently shared his thoughts on how elite UFC stars like Khabib Nurmagomedov and Khamzat Chimaev would fare in pure grappling competition.
“They’re not the best freestyle wrestlers in the world. They’re not the best jiu-jitsu guys in the world,” Ryan stated in a recent podcast episode. “If you put those guys into ADCC, they would get beat pretty easily.”
While acknowledging that Khabib and Chimaev are exceptional MMA competitors, he emphasized that their grappling style is specifically tailored for mixed martial arts rather than pure grappling competition.
“What they’re doing is submission grappling for MMA,” Ryan explained. “They’re supposed to be the best MMA fig hters and they have the ability to take people down. They have the ability to follow them through transitions and they have the ability to make them carry body weight, keep them on the floor or either return them down to the floor when they go to get up, or hit them on the way up and then do significant damage with punches or submit them from top position.”
The five-time ADCC champion pointed out that classical jiu-jitsu as practiced in sport competition doesn’t always translate directly to MMA effectiveness. Many sport grapplers struggle to maintain dominant positions that allow for ground and pound, which is crucial in MMA.
Ryan continued: “So like that kind of jiu-jitsu, that submission wrestling kind of jiu-jitsu, where a guy can put people down and then do damage from top position after keeping him down, is like the most important kind of jiu-jitsu.”
Ryan also discussed the evolution of no-gi grappling, predicting that the next decade will see increased competition from American and Russian athletes.
Currently recovering from ongoing stomach issues, Ryan is eyeing a return to competition before ADCC 2026. Despite his health challenges, he continues training daily at his newly opened academy, Kingsway, in Austin, Texas, where he coaches alongside his mentor John Danaher.
