Gordon Ryan is claimed by many as the greatest of all time when it comes to no gi BJJ and has the medals and record to back it up. However, he is also known for having outspoken views. Not one to hold back, he will often express his views and isn’t afraid of the consequences. Due to this, he has built a love-hate relationship with BJJ fans, who either follow him and love his honest style or find him too opinionated.
Regardless of your views, you can’t deny that he speaks his mind and wears his heart on his sleeve. Here are 12 of the top quotes from Gordon ‘The King’ Ryan which relate not only to Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, but also for life in general. Want to have killer back attacks like The King himself? Check out his Back Attack DVD here.
- “I’m trying to get Jiu Jitsu back to the martial arts roots. I feel like what everyone does currently is to not lose a match. We’re trying to take it back to the martial art where you go in to finish people. Everyone got into Jiu Jitsu to control and submit people”
2. “The more time you spend fighting out of bad positions in training, the more confident you become in your defense. The more confident in your defense, the more confident you will be in attacking your opponent knowing that if you end up in a bad position, you can easily recover and go right back into more attacks”
3. “Holidays are made up days to make you believe its ok to take time away from achieving the goals have set”
4. “Jiu Jitsu overall gives you a lot of confidence. Not really fearing everyday problems, like how you’re going to handle your bills is not really an issue when you’ve got to worry about someone trying to break your arm everyday”
5. “No matter who gets elected president, remember who your king is”
6. “It’s comical how these broke athletes who no one gives a f*** about can come at me making all kinds of demands. Who the f*** are you? You’re living in my world”
7. “I love how people say BJJ is built around respect and honor. No, it’s not! It’s built around savage Brazilians kicking the s*** out of people just because they could. Storming gyms and other martial arts and fighting their instructors just to show how superior BJJ was. And while I think that’s f****** awesome, it’s not the fairytale you guys tell about respect and honor. This sport is built around real men who didn’t give a f*** and took what they wanted”
8. “Remember just a few short years ago when I was the only one talking s***? All the other top competitors looked down upon me and said I was disrespectful. Now everyone talks s*** and is trying to be a bootleg version of myself”
9. “I’m not like everybody else. I’m on a completely different level than all the world’s best black belts right now”
10. “Staying on top takes a different kind of human. Something you find once in a lifetime. It’s a different line of thought”
11. “Message to the soy boys out there. Just in case you don’t like me and think I’m offensive. I want to say from the bottom of my heart…go f*** yourselves. I’ll be here forever”
12. “Everyone who is no one wants a match until we ask them to put their own money up. And everyone who is actually accomplished wants a match until its time to sign the contract”
