Gordon Ryan has just come out to publicly accuse the officials at CJI of being biased against his teammates at New Wave Jiu-Jitsu. Although he isn’t in the venue itself, he’s clearly still watching along at home in support of his training partners. Ryan was very vocal about his refusal to compete at CJI 2, but his coach and 3 of the best grapplers who train alongside him are all there on the hunt for gold. New Wave were actually up first in the event too, and it was one of his most successful training partners that actually inspired him to complain publicly about bias.
His accusations stem from the fourth match of the night, where Giancarlo Bodoni was taking on Taylor Pearman. Bodoni had already beat one opponent by submission and put his team in the lead during their opening round matchup, only to get submitted by Pearman in his second match. Pearman got in on a heel hook after a few minutes of action, and Bodoni appeared to tap on Pearman’s leg while the sub was being applied. It was that moment that caused the biggest controversy of the first day of CJI 2, as Bodoni immediately started protesting that he didn’t actually tap.
The crowd in attendance immediately started siding against Bodoni and proclaiming that he did tap, while the referees took a moment to review the footage of the finish. They eventually concluded that Bodoni did tap and the match was ruled a submission win for Pearman. The decision still controversial as there were factors leaning in either direction. The main thing that led many to believe that Bodoni didn’t tap was that his hand only made contact with Pearman once, rather than multiple times. In many organizations, a submission needs to be more than one physical tap in quick succession. Ryan was unhappy with the ruling for the same reason, and he blamed Craig Jones and the event itself for it.
Gordon Ryan accused CJI of being biased against New Wave Jiu-Jitsu in a recent post to his official Instagram account:
