ONE Championship Signs Gordon Ryan

Photo credit to Black Belt Magazine

EXCLUSIVE: Gordon Ryan no longer with ONE Championship

ADCC champion Gordon Ryan is no longer under contract with ONE Championship sources tell MyMMANews.com. Fresh off his ADCC win and ONE Championship crowning their first jiu jitsu champion in Mikey Musumechi at ONE on Amazon Prime 2, MyMMANews has learned that Gordon Ryan is no longer under contract with the promotion.

An official for ONE Championship confirmed the news to My MMA News following questions about when Ryan would make his ONE debut. The official confirmed that Ryan was, in fact, not with ONE any longer. MyMMANews has reached out to Gordon Ryan but Ryan has not responded.

MyMMANews.com will update the story as it unfolds.

Gordon Ryan and ONE Championship: Some things are not meant to be

Gordon Ryan was announced to have signed to ONE Championship in March of 2021 by ONE CEO Chatri Sityodtong. The contract was allegedly to compete in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and mixed martial arts should Ryan want to make that jump. Ryan was forced to semi-retire as he mentioned on his podcast with Joe Rogan that he was suffering from gastroparesis that caused him significant pain all the time.

Originally the plan was to have Gordon Ryan make his debut against Shinya Aoki in August of 2021 but Ryan’s medical condition forced him out of the match.

Now recovered, Ryan has won the ADCC tournament at 99+ kilograms and the super fight with Andre Galvao in the same year. In this year’s tournament, he beat Galvao in the super fight as well as Nick Rodriguez, Roosevelt Souza, Victor Hugo, and Heikki Jussila in his run to the tournament title.

Unfortunately, we won’t see Gordon Ryan in ONE Championship. While that does, indeed stink, ONE has done a great job getting some of the biggest Jiu Jitsu players on board. Recently announced, Kade Ruotolo, who became the youngest ADCC champion ever this past year, will be facing 2019 Sambo World Champion Uali Kurzhev for the inaugural ONE lightweight jiu jitsu title.

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In addition to covering jiu jitsu for My MMA News, Blaine Henry, the author, also analyzes fights from all combat sports across the globe. 

Blaine Henry can be found on Twitter, YouTube and Substack.

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Blaine Henry
Your friendly neighborhood fight fan. I watch way too many fights and my wife lets me know it.