Ready to fight
Rumours of systemic bullying, steroid abuse, and sexual experiments gone awry threw the jiu-jitsu-net into hysterics.
Image Credit: Hugo Anthony Hay
Brazilian jiu-jitsu is a grappling martial art prototyped by a Japanese judo practitioner and developed by a Brazilian family in their garage. It exploded in popularity in the early 90s, which has placed jiu-jitsu in a strange place, not quite popular or admired enough to be an Olympic sport and not quite marketable enough to reach the cultural and marketable heights of boxing or MMA. However, this hasn’t left the sport short of big competitions or big personalities…
Competitions, once a stale and studious experience, would see a transition from pay-per-view to free platforms. Subsequently, the online presence of jiu-jitsu began to expand: athletes were more active on social media, pre and post-match interviews became more common, and highlights of matches were now posted on YouTube and Instagram for free
The culmination of the digital explosion of the sport was the formation of the supergroup ‘Danaher Death Squad’, led by infamously unforgiving philosopher-turned-coach, John Danaher. The group consisted of some of the sport's most skilled and entertaining athletes: motor-mouthed Gordon Ryan, boisterous rookie Nick Rodriguez and banterous “true-blue Aussie'' Craig Jones. The team was highly interactive with the jiu-jitsu community, hosting events worldwide and making several of their own web series.
In early 2020, many of their content-producing contemporaries from DDS ventured to Puerto Rico, partly to escape the imminent expansion of COVID-19 as well as to make their experience more appealing online and for other athletes to join them, almost like a testosterone-fuelled Hype House.
The group mysteriously and dramatically split halfway through their year-long training camp on the beaches of Puerto Rico. Rumours of systemic bullying, steroid abuse, and sexual experiments gone awry threw the jiu-jitsu-net into hysterics. In the eye of a gossipy storm, the Death Squad was silent…
They returned to America in schism. Ryan remained with Danaher, opening ‘New wave Jiu-Jitsu’ in Austin, Texas, whilst Rodriguez and Jones opened ‘B-team Jiu-Jitsu’, only 15 minutes away (awkward).
Speculation resurfaced during the lead-up to a highly anticipated competition when Rodriguez stated, “We had to cut the poison out and move on.” Rodriguez was the only former member of DDS set to face Ryan and lost.
Shortly after, on February 14th, Ryan posted a photo celebrating his victory with the caption “Happy valentines day…I’ve been fucking [Rodriguez] in every round and competition since we met.”
Rodriguez retorted “[Ryan’s] biggest thing is steroids.”
Ryan then graced ‘Jitstagram’ with a gift — a 62-slide story simultaneously admitting and denying his steroid use. A 63rd slide would detail his extensive gastroenterological complications.
Rodriguez and Jones sent back several packages of adult nappies. Jones shot a video, emerging from a mud bath, captioned “when [Ryan] thinks he’s finally safe, I’ll be in his toilet.”
Ryan and Rodriguez were set for a rematch. Ryan won via a controversial split decision, doubling down on Rodriguez’s use of steroids. Rodriguez proves himself clean, revealing himself instead as a “habitual nut-buster. Ideally 3-4 a day for testosterone output obviously.”
The Ryan-Rodriguez quarrel has been one of the most interesting in recent combat sports history, free of the viciousness found in the beef of McGregor v Khabib and less manufactured than in Fury vs Paul. This absurd agon of jiu-jitsu micro-celebrities has brought the dedicated community closer and even attracted newcomers to the sport.
Finally matching the personality and grandeur of other sports, the ultra-serious and hypermasculinity makes jiu-jitsu less daunting and more human. In a violent sport, being a little silly takes the edge off.