Kingsway Jiu-Jitsu have just announced that Izaak Michell will no longer be training with them or represent them in competition moving forward. The announcement was made by their co-founder Gordon Ryan and although he hasn’t released the exact reasons behind the decision, one sentence has sent rumours flying. Ryan ended his only public statement on the matter by saying that ‘we have been advised that no further details should be made public at this time.’ The cryptic nature of this statement has led fans to speculate wildly, and there’s still no further concrete details available at the time of writing.
The most interesting aspect of this news is that it isn’t even the first time that Michell has left a team on bad terms. He used to represent B-Team Jiu-Jitsu but there was quite a bit of bad blood between them when he left that team; so much so in fact that Michell was blocked from competing at CJI 2. Michell has yet to actually release a statement on the news himself and there’s no news on what academy he will be representing now, if any at all. It also throws into question his invite to ADCC 2026, which he won at the ADCC Asia & Oceania Trials just a few weeks ago.
Gordon Ryan announced the news that Izaak Michell had been removed from the Kingsway Jiu-Jitsu team in a recent post to his official Instagram account:
Almost immediately after he released a statement on the matter, Craig Jones also chimed in on the news. He dropped several hints as to the reason why Michell was removed from the team but he stopped just short of explicitly revealing it. Given that he has several connections to Michell through them both being Australian and both Kingsway Jiu-Jitsu and Jones former team operating in the same city, it does make sense that he might be privy to insider information. Although he didn’t outright accuse Michell of anything, the insinuations he made were pretty clear:
