Gordon Ryan has wasted no time at all in sharing his full thoughts on the news that his former teammate Craig Jones was retiring and B-Team Jiu-Jitsu coming to an end. It’s no secret that he has a bitter rivalry with almost the entire team, and it goes back a fairly long time as well. They all trained together for several years as members of the Danaher Death Squad but when that working relationship came to an end, so did any friendship that existed too. While Ryan left with the head coach John Danaher to form what is now called Kingsway Jiu-Jitsu, Jones and other key members left to become B-Team Jiu-Jitsu.
Things were fairly quiet at first but as information slowly started to be leaked, it became very clear that there was no love lost between the two camps. Over the next few years both sides took the opportunity to take shots at the other at regular intervals, and their rivalry became one of the biggest storylines in the sport. Things looked a little positive for a moment when Jones patched things up with John Danaher, but Ryan clearly hasn’t forgiven him. Regardless of whether he does or not, it seems like that phase of BJJ might be coming to an end with Jones leaving the sport behind and it looking increasingly likely that Ryan might do the same.
Gordon Ryan started out his criticism of Craig Jones retiring and B-Team Jiu-Jitsu coming to an end in a recent post to his official Instagram account:
Ryan’s ‘cutting out the poison’ comment is in reference to Nicky Rodriguez speaking out about the breakup of the Danaher Death Squad. Rodriguez used the phrase in reference to one person that certain people in the team had issues with, and they had to move on without them. Although Rodriguez never explicitly stated it, most fans guessed that the one person he was referring to was Ryan. Seeing Gordon Ryan use that phrase to fire back at Craig Jones and the rest of B-Team now seems to suggest that he might also believe that he was the person being talked about. Ryan then followed it up with a story targeting Jones specifically:
Although Ryan didn’t clarify exactly what he’s talking about that Jones apparently knows, he added another story several hours later and made reference to Jacob Rodriguez’s recent misconduct allegations and ban from B-Team Jiu-Jitsu:
