Gordon Ryan and Royce Gracie are both legends of BJJ, with both men coming from completely different generations of competitors and achieving remarkably different feats. Regardless, the pair of elite grapplers actually got together recently and recorded some footage of them rolling together as well. Of course, the age and size difference between the two meant that they couldn’t exactly go full-force like athletes of the same generation have been known to in the past, but they still managed to enjoy some lighter-paced rounds with one another.
Royce Gracie is one of the early figures in the rise of BJJ, owing to the fact that he first pushed it into the mainstream consciousness by winning UFC 1 in 1993. He wasn’t satisfied with his three wins from that event though and he returned to submit another four opponents to win UFC 2 before being forced to withdraw from UFC 3 after a single victory, due to exhaustion. He also registered another three submissions at UFC 4 in order to win his third tournament in the octagon and went on to compete in several other legendary MMA fights, including the longest fights in both UFC and PRIDE history against Ken Shamrock and Kazushi Sakuraba respectively.
Gordon Ryan meanwhile has quickly established himself as one of the greatest no gi grapplers in the history of the sport, putting together an incredibly impressive resume despite being nowhere near retirement just yet. Ryan is only 27 but he’s already become the first person to win the ADCC world championships in three different weightclasses. He has also won the absolute division in 2019 and dethroned Andre Galvao as the superfight champion in 2022, becoming the first new person to hold that title in almost a decade.
Gordon Ryan uploaded the footage of his rolling session with Royce Gracie in a recent post to his official Instagram account:
