In a recent appearance on Bruce Buffer’s podcast “IT’S TIME!!!”, Gordon Ryan delved into his true stance on steroid use and PEDs in the sport of jiu-jitsu.
Ryan believes that individual competitive organizations introducing PED testing would ruin the sport — but not, perhaps, for the reasons most fans think. “I think if USADA steps into, like, Fight Pass events, for example, it’s gonna ruin Fight Pass events,” he cited as an example. “And the reason is, is that because if you’re competing in a Fight Pass event or if you’re competing on a Fight Pass Invitational and you’re getting randomly tested, that means now that you’re the only person in the sport who’s getting tested. And a person who’s competing on FloGrappling, for example, or ONE Championship, isn’t getting tested.
“And so that means you have to be competing natural for those specific events where everyone else in the sport can be on PEDs. That puts you at an extreme disadvantage for no reason unless you’re getting paid exorbitant amounts of money.”
In other words, unless USADA becomes a presence at all the major competitive promotions in submission grappling, across the board, Ryan believes that testing protocols will create lopsided advantages for some athletes over others. “I definitely think USADA coming in would have to be across the board rather than just one organization or another,” he elaborated.
If PED testing did in fact become the norm across all jiu-jitsu organizations, Ryan claims that he would love to compete as a natural athlete. “If USADA did come in and start testing across the board, I would love to actually compete against all of my opponents natural,” he explained to Buffer. “Because the only way that they survive for any amount of time is they just juice their way out of things for ten minutes until they get tired. If they didn’t have the physicality, the match would be twice as easy.”
Watch the full episode on YouTube.
