Once upon a time, BJJ stars Gordon Ryan, Craig Jones, and Nicky Rod all trained together in perfect harmony. Unfortunately, that’s no longer the case.
Led by head instructor John Danaher, the team that came to be known as the Danaher Death Squad was one of the most feared crews in all of BJJ. Eventually, the band broke up due to some in-house drama that saw Ryan leave the Puerto Rico-based gym for Austin, Texas. Danaher followed Ryan to The Lone Star State and the duo—along with Garry Tonon—established New Wave Jiu-Jitsu.
Interestingly, Jones and Rod set up shop about 15 minutes away from Ryan and Danaher in Austin, establishing their B Team Jiu-Jitsu brand with other notable names like Izaak Michell, Ethan Crelinsten, and Nicky Ryan joining.
Little has come out about the drama that resulted in the DDS disbandment. However, ‘King Ryan’ recently shed some light on the situation and placed much of the blame on Craig Jones for being a far different person than the one he portrays on social media.
“If [Jones] can’t beat you … like if he can’t beat something, or like win at something, he’ll just try to destroy it,” Ryan told Jake Shields. “He couldn’t beat me, so he joined the team then broke the team up. He couldn’t win ADCC so he tried to crush ADCC. He’s very vindictive. Craig’s Instagram persona is the exact opposite of what Craig is in real life.”
Gordon sounding off on Craig Jones’ offline persona pic.twitter.com/yeCSYhlpqp
— BJJotter (@JiujitsuOtter) October 10, 2024
Craig Jones Responds to Gordon Ryan
Getting wind of Ryan’s comments, Jones snapped back on social media and accused both Danaher and Ryan of overworking and abusing athletes—in addition to other alarming allegations.
“Jake Shields podcast with Gordon [Ryan} is rock solid, obviously nothing but the truth,” Jones rebutted on Instagram. “We left the gym … B-Team formed because John Danaher was just training us too hard — not because he was slapping the sh*t out of people, not because of the abuse Gordon was doing to people along with his partner. All those things … straight over their heads.”
He added, “G-Diddy, Gordon Ryan, for sure he would have gone to the ‘White Party’ — only because he thought it was a Klan meeting,” Jones continued. “But to his pleasant surprise, he would still get to watch his wife work with some baby oil.”
Craig finally details his reasons for leaving The DDS pic.twitter.com/G4oDk5go29
— BJJotter (@JiujitsuOtter) October 10, 2024
Jones’ ‘G-Diddy’ dig is a reference to embattled hip hop mogul Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs who is facing life in prison for a slew of disturbing allegations.
Check out some of the biggest highlights from the now-defunct Danaher Death Squad below:
