Gordon Ryan Says Brazil's Grip on Jiu-Jitsu is Slipping: "They'll Be Phased Out"

Jiu-Jitsu Federation: Gordon Ryan told Tim Kennedy on the Overdogs USA podcast that while Brazil's legacy in Jiu-Jitsu remains secure for now, its grip on the sport's competitive advantage is starting to loosen.
Here's what he had to say:
I think Brazil has such a big head start and they have so many people, so many people, so many champions already, that they'll probably be prominent for the next decade.
But if the Brazilians don't start making adjustments, if they just stay pigheaded and do everything they've been doing for the last 30 years that worked because the sport wasn't really progressing much, they're going to get phased out.
That shift is already visible on the Trials circuit.
Once considered secondary to Brazil's domestic competitions, the American Trials have surpassed their Brazilian counterpart in prestige and depth of talent:
When I started, when you were competing, the Brazilian Trials was the big trials.
Now it's the American Trials.
If you win the American Trials, you're sitting much higher.
The American Trials have so much more talent now.
Ryan attributes much of that shift to access.
The rise of instructionals, subscription platforms and match footage gave American athletes a resource advantage that didn't translate equally to Brazil:
The conversion rate in Brazil is so hard. For most Brazilians, it's hard to pay.
So they just don't have access to the information you'd have in America.
He also pointed to a factor few in the sport have discussed openly…
The potential rise of Russian competitors:
I'm very interested to see how it's going to be when Russians start getting involved, because that's going to be a problem for everybody.
Once you get guys who are just so good at wrestling and also get pretty involved in Jiu-Jitsu, then they're like world-class black belt jiu-jitsu level and Olympic-level wrestling, that's going to be a problem for everybody.

The article Gordon Ryan Says Brazil's Grip on Jiu-Jitsu is Slipping: "They'll Be Phased Out" first appeared in Bjj Eastern Europe.

Source: BJJEE — read the original