• Kingsway Jiu-Jitsu co-founder Gordon Ryan announced that Izaak Michell is no longer training at, or affiliated with, the team.
• The statement offered no public explanation and said the gym had been advised not to share further details “at this time.”
• Ryan also said comments were turned off to stop sexual misconduct rumours spreading — a move that intensified speculation online.
• The timing matters, coming weeks after Michell earned an invite to ADCC 2026 at the Asia & Oceania Trials.

The Gordon Ryan Statement That Set Everything Off

The Izaak Michell Kingsway Jiu Jitsu split went public when Kingsway Jiu-Jitsu confirmed the news with a brief message from Gordon Ryan, making it clear that Michell is no longer connected to the gym.

“Izaak Michell is no longer training at or affiliated in any way with our gym. We have been advised that no further details should be made public at this time.”
– Gordon Ryan –

The biggest reaction wasn’t to the removal itself — it was to what wasn’t said. The line about being “advised” not to share more immediately pushed the conversation into speculation territory.

Ryan then addressed another detail people noticed quickly: comments on the post were disabled.

“We have also been asked to turn off comments so that rumors are not spread.”
– Gordon Ryan –

In the current No-Gi climate, that combo of silence plus comment lockdown tends to create more noise, not less.

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A post shared by Gordon Ryan 👑 (@gordonlovesjiujitsu)

Izaak Michell Kingsway Jiu Jitsu Banishment: What We Know For Sure

The confirmed facts are straightforward: Izaak Michell is no longer part of Kingsway Jiu-Jitsu, and the team is not giving reasons publicly.

Since the announcement, online chatter has ranged from generic “team drama” to more serious allegations, including unverified claims of misconduct and even rumours involving law enforcement.

As of now, those claims have not been confirmed publicly through official channels connected to the team, and Michell has not released a detailed statement addressing the situation.

That’s worth underlining because this is how reputations get shaped in modern grappling: one vague post becomes a thousand “explanations,” and the loudest version starts to feel like the truth.

For Kingsway, the decision to cut ties is the story. For Michell, the lack of explanation becomes the story — because it leaves promoters, sponsors, and training partners guessing about what comes next.

Who Is Izaak Michell?

For anyone just catching up, the Izaak Michell Kingsway Jiu Jitsu situation involves an Australian No-Gi competitor who has spent the last few years in the orbit of the sport’s biggest rooms.

Michell is also someone whose team relationships have repeatedly become public conversation.

Before the Izaak Michell Kingsway Jiu Jitsu split, Michell represented B-Team Jiu-Jitsu, and his exit from that camp was widely viewed as contentious. The fallout didn’t stay behind closed doors; it became part of his public narrative.

That backdrop is why this latest news hit so fast. Some people see it as another chapter in a pattern — not necessarily proof of anything specific, but evidence that wherever Michell goes, things tend to get complicated.

At the same time, his recent competitive results matter. Michell earned an invite to ADCC 2026 by winning the ADCC Asia & Oceania Trials, which is one of the clearest “earn it on the mat” pathways in the sport.

Craig Jones Weighed In, And The Rumour Machine Did The Rest

Shortly after Ryan’s announcement, Craig Jones posted about the situation. He stopped short of a direct accusation, but the tone and timing were widely interpreted as insinuating he had insight into why Michell was removed.

Jones is also deeply connected to the same ecosystem — Australian ties, the Austin scene, and years of overlap with the people involved — which is why even indirect posts can carry weight.

But indirect is still indirect, and when influential voices hint without stating, the internet fills in blanks aggressively.

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A post shared by Craig Jones (@craigjonesbjj)

This is the messy reality for teams right now: say nothing and people assume the worst; say too much and you risk privacy and legal blowback; say “just enough,” and you create a vacuum that speculation rushes to occupy.

In practical terms, Kingsway Jiu-Jitsu will keep moving. Elite rooms always do. The bigger question is how this affects Michell’s next six to twelve months, especially with ADCC 2026 on the horizon.

ADCC invites aren’t “team invites,” they’re athlete invites. Michell earned his spot, and unless something official changes his status, he can still show up and compete.

However, grappling is also a business: promoters weigh risk, sponsors weigh optics, and gyms weigh culture. If this stays vague, the uncertainty alone can become the problem.

For now, the only confirmed reality is the split itself: Izaak Michell Kingsway Jiu Jitsu is over, and the people closest to it aren’t expanding publicly. Until Michell speaks in detail — or something verifiable changes — everything else is noise.

• Mark Zuckerberg did three rounds of sparring with UFC bantamweight standout Merab Dvalishvili, and the footage quickly spread online.
• Dvalishvili is back in the gym days after losing his UFC bantamweight title to Petr Yan at UFC 323 — an immediate return that fits his reputation.
• Mark Zuckerberg Sparring With Dvalishvili is just another step in his consistent training with high-level MMA talent.
• The most replayed moment: Zuckerberg completes a takedown, then eats a playful “Stockton slap” for his trouble.

Mark Zuckerberg Sparring with Dvalishvili Didn’t Look Like A Photo-Op

“Billionaire trains MMA” is an easy headline to dismiss — until the clip looks like real sparring. That’s why Mark Zuckerberg sparring with Dvalishvili grabbed attention this week: it’s three full rounds with movement, contact, and enough live reactions to show both men are actually working.

The session was shared publicly on Wednesday, December 17, and it shows Zuckerberg trading punches and clinch entries with Dvalishvili — the kind of pace-heavy fighter who makes almost everyone look exhausted.

Merab is the pro, he’s controlling the danger, and he’s clearly not trying to hurt him. But Zuckerberg doesn’t look panicked or lost, which is usually the first tell when someone’s new to the mat.

If you train, you know the difference between “posing” and “participating.” This was participation.

The Takedown, The “Stockton Slap,” And The Clip’s Viral Sweet Spot

The highlight is simple: Zuckerberg hits a takedown, and Dvalishvili answers with a slap that looks straight out of the Stockton meme folder — part joke, part reminder of the pecking order.

It works because it’s readable for everyone. Casual viewers see a tech CEO getting checked. Fighters and grapplers see a controlled exchange where a professional lets the round breathe while still steering it.

Dvalishvili also sounded genuinely positive about the work afterwards:

“He’s the man, I love it.”
– Merab Dvalishvili –

That line matters. It frames the whole thing the way it looks on tape — hard rounds, but still a gym atmosphere, not a “celebrity fight.”

Mark Zuckerberg MMA Training Keeps Showing Up In Real Rooms

The bigger story is repetition. Mark Zuckerberg sparring with Dvalishvili isn’t an isolated moment; it fits a pattern of him training for years, then popping up in clips with elite UFC names.

One reason this keeps getting traction is that the footage doesn’t show a guy trying to look tough for the internet. It shows someone trying to do the round: stay balanced, keep his eyes up, enter and exit safely, and accept that he’s going to get hit.

That’s also why the takedown moment lands. You can’t fake timing and confidence on an entry if you’ve never done the work.

It doesn’t mean Zuckerberg is “on Merab’s level” — it means he’s got enough reps to attempt things under pressure without freezing.

Merab’s Quick Turnaround After Petr Yan At UFC 323

For Dvalishvili, the timing is almost the point. He’s coming off a UFC 323 title loss to Petr Yan, and instead of disappearing he’s already back in the gym, logging rounds and staying visible.

The loss also re-opened the bigger storyline: Dvalishvili and Yan are now 1–1, and the division immediately started buzzing about a potential rubber match down the line.

Whether that happens next or not, Merab’s message is the same — he’s not taking a long break.

In bantamweight, that matters. Momentum and matchmaking move fast, and a former champion who keeps his engine running is a former champion who can jump back into the mix quickly — whether that’s a contender fight, a rematch, or a long road back to the belt.

Zuck Getting Real Skills?

On the surface, Mark Zuckerberg sparring with Dvalishvili is just a wild crossover: three rounds, a takedown, a slap, and people arguing online about what it “means.”

But the real takeaway is simpler. Zuckerberg keeps showing up, and the sessions keep looking like actual training — not a one-off stunt. And for Merab, it reinforces what everyone already knows about him: win or lose, the work doesn’t stop.

If this trend continues, don’t be surprised if the next viral clip isn’t a novelty at all — just another day at the gym, with another big name stepping into the round.

• A No Gi Worlds coaches brawl broke out mat-side at the IBJJF No Gi World Championships on Saturday, December 13, 2025, during a juvenile division match area.
• Coach Jeff Haddad says the incident happened near Mat 20, and he has since apologized directly to the IBJJF and publicly.
• In his statement, Haddad took responsibility, saying he failed to act like a coach and that there were “no grounds” for his actions.
• The situation has reignited debate around coach conduct—especially when kids and teens are competing on the sport’s biggest stages.

The Mat-Side Blowup At No Gi Worlds 2025

The IBJJF No Gi World Championships are supposed to be the cleanest showcase of Jiu-Jitsu competition: the best athletes, the highest stakes, and—ideally—the best behavior. But this year, one of the clips that traveled fastest wasn’t a slick guard pass or a last-second finish.

It was a No Gi Worlds coaches brawl that flared up during a juvenile match and spilled into the mat-side coaching area. Footage circulating from the venue shows coaches getting physical near the edge of the competition space as people rush in to separate them.

The optics are brutal no matter which “side” someone thinks they’re on—because the competitors involved were teenagers, and the adults were the ones who lost control.

What made this incident stick wasn’t just the video. It was the fact that one of the coaches involved, Jeff Haddad, followed up with a written coach apology and took ownership of the moment publicly.

No Gi Worlds Coaches Brawl: What Sparked It Near Mat 20

Based on Haddad’s own description, the incident took place near Mat 20 on Saturday, December 13, and it stemmed from an exchange after one of his athletes lost.

Haddad said another coach taunted his competitor—an athlete he describes as 16 years old—and that the tension escalated from there.

Even with that context, Haddad’s key point was simple: provocation doesn’t matter when you’re the adult with responsibility in the corner. In other words, you can’t claim “heat of the moment” as a pass when you’re coaching a kid at a world championship.

That’s the uncomfortable truth sitting underneath the meme-able headline. A No Gi Worlds coaches brawl in an adult match is already a bad look. In juvenile divisions, it’s worse—because it drags teenagers into adult ego, adult conflict, and adult consequences.

Jeff Haddad Statement: “I Am A Coach, And I Did Not Carry Myself As Such”

Haddad’s apology wasn’t vague, and it wasn’t written in the classic “sorry if anyone was offended” tone. He framed it as a professional failure—something that reflected badly on him, his team, and the event itself.

I am a coach, and I did not carry myself as such. I carried myself as an irresponsible adult who did not control his actions.
– Jeff Haddad –

He also addressed the idea that taunting can “justify” anything physical—flatly rejecting it.

Taunting an athlete after a loss is not grounds to push someone. There are NO grounds in which I should have done that.
– Jeff Haddad –

One detail that stood out is how he described writing the apology: outside the venue, with the reality of the moment settling in. He also noted that he didn’t yet know what punishment—if any—would come from the IBJJF.

I am not sure when a decision will be made on what my punishment will be. However, I understand this behavior cannot and will not be tolerated at all.
– Jeff Haddad –

That last line is doing a lot of work. It’s not just regret; it’s an acknowledgment that the sport’s biggest organizations can’t afford coach-side chaos—especially in divisions where the athletes are minors.

Juvenile Divisions Make Coach Behavior A Bigger Deal

Most grapplers have seen it: corners getting loud, coaches barking, parents trying to “coach the coach,” and the tension that comes with a close match.

But juvenile divisions change the stakes because the athlete’s experience is still being shaped. Teens don’t just remember who won—they remember how the adults behaved when it mattered.

A No Gi Worlds coaches brawl in a juvenile setting raises questions that go beyond one bad decision:

1. What message does it send to young athletes about “acceptable” conduct under pressure?
2. What message does it send to newer families deciding whether Jiu-Jitsu culture is a good fit?
3. And what message does it send to the broader combat sports world that already stereotypes grappling events as disorganized?

There’s also a competitive fairness angle. Corner interference and emotional escalation can affect referees, opponents, and the pace of a match day. Even if no athlete is directly harmed, the environment gets worse for everyone in the building.

The Real Fallout

For Haddad personally, the timing is rough. He’s not an anonymous spectator—he’s a visible figure in the competition scene and a listed founder of a Connecticut-based event platform, with notable competition credentials attached to his name.

That means the consequences of a No Gi Worlds coaches brawl don’t stop at a viral clip. They follow you into your academy culture, your athlete recruiting, and your wider reputation in the sport.

As of now, the most concrete “aftermath” is the apology itself: Haddad taking responsibility and emphasizing that the behavior shouldn’t be tolerated.

Whether the IBJJF issues a formal penalty is a separate question, and one the community will keep watching—because enforcement (or lack of it) sets precedent.

The bigger takeaway, though, is painfully simple: if Jiu-Jitsu wants to keep growing—especially for kids—then the adults have to act like adults. The athletes already carry enough pressure at Worlds. They shouldn’t have to carry their coaches’ too.

• Roger Gracie has doubled down on his long-held view that drilling is overrated, arguing that ground techniques only really develop under resistance.
• He prefers specific sparring over traditional “repeat the move 1000 times” drilling, saying improvement comes from solving the same live problem again and again.
• His emphasis on resistance, task-based training and problem-solving closely mirrors today’s ecological / constraints-led approach to Jiu-Jitsu.
• The message isn’t “never drill” – it’s “drill just enough to learn the mechanics, then shift quickly to positional sparring and live scenarios”.
• For everyday students, his stance is a strong push to rethink class structure: more specific rounds, fewer zombie reps, and training that looks a lot more like the roll itself.

Roger Gracie Drilling Is Overrated: How His Training Philosophy Mirrors Ecological Jiu-Jitsu

When a ten-time world champion says “I’m not a believer of drilling,” the Jiu-Jitsu world pays attention.

Roger Gracie has been consistent for years: he’ll drill enough to understand the mechanics of a move, but once that’s in place, he believes endless repetitions without resistance are largely a waste of time.

That “Roger Gracie drilling is overrated” stance has resurfaced in a recent conversation with John Danaher and in an IBJJF Q&A clip – and it happens to line up almost perfectly with the modern ecological, constraints-led approach that’s now dominating coaching debates.

Instead of canned sequences, Roger talks about spending most of his mat time in specific sparring, solving live problems from defined positions. For him, that’s where real Jiu-Jitsu skill comes from: exposure, resistance and adaptation, not choreography.

Roger Gracie Drilling Is Overrated

Roger’s starting point is simple and brutally honest: once you understand what a move is supposed to do mechanically, blindly repeating it doesn’t magically turn it into a live skill.

I’m not a believer of drilling.
– Roger Gracie –

In his talks about training, he explains that there is a place for drilling – at the very beginning. You drill to learn the mechanics, to feel the movement and understand where your hips, grips and weight should be.

But once that basic map is clear, he doesn’t see value in running the same sequence a thousand times on a partner who never really fights back.

He often compares this to Judo. Standing throws, with their timing and explosive entries, do benefit from huge amounts of drilling reps.

On the ground, though, he argues that the chaos of real grappling – shifting weight, frames, reactions and scrambles – means you quickly hit a ceiling if your partner stays compliant.

That’s where specific sparring replaces rote drilling. Instead of running an armbar entry from closed guard 50 times, Roger would rather you spend rounds starting in closed guard, actively trying to set up that armbar against someone who is doing everything they can to stop you.

You’re still repeating the situation – but the repetitions are alive.

I don’t drill, but I am a huge fan of specific sparring. For me, specific sparring is where I make the most improvements and refine my technique.
– Roger Gracie –

Specific Sparring, Resistance And Ecological Jiu-Jitsu

In that IBJJF Q&A clip, Roger is introduced with the line: “It’s impossible to learn without resistance.” That one sentence might be the cleanest bridge between his ideas and the ecological Jiu-Jitsu approach everyone is arguing about online right now.

Ecological / constraints-led training basically says this:

• Skills develop best in live, information-rich environments
• You learn by solving problems that look like the real thing
• Coaches should design tasks and constraints, not memorize-this-move scripts

That’s almost a textbook description of how Roger says he built his game. He talks about picking a position – say, escaping side control – and living there:

When you do this specific sparring, it’s the repetition that tells you what you’re doing wrong – even what you’re doing right – because when you go over the same movement over and over again with sparring, then you see… .
– Roger Gracie –

Modern ecological coaches use different language – “attuning to information”, “solving affordances”, “task design” – but the core looks very familiar to any old-school room that spent half the class in positional rounds. Some veterans even argue that ecological Jiu-Jitsu is just a fancy rebranding of how Brazilians used to train before the YouTube and DVD era.

When you put it in that light, the Roger Gracie drilling is overrated idea feels less like a hot take and more like a reminder: resistance and context have always been where real grappling skill lives.

Don’t be afraid to put yourself in tough situations. You learn every time you tap. Let go of your ego and watch your Jiu-Jitsu get better.
– Roger Gracie –

How This Challenges Traditional Jiu-Jitsu Classes

Most students know the classic format: warm-up, technique demo, drilling in pairs, then a few rounds of rolling. In that model, static drilling often eats the biggest chunk of class time.

Roger’s philosophy – and ecological thinking – quietly ask some uncomfortable questions:

Crucially, the Roger Gracie drilling philosophy is not saying to delete drilling from the curriculum. He explicitly acknowledges its role in teaching basic mechanics. But he argues that once the move “exists” in your body, the training emphasis should shift fast – away from zombie reps and towards positional sparring and constrained games.

That’s straight out of the constraints-led playbook. Instead of “do this sweep 20 times each”, you get tasks like:

• Start in side control bottom; top’s goal is to hold, bottom’s goal is to escape to guard or turtle.

• Start in triangle; bottom finishes, top’s goal is to posture and escape.

• Start with back control hooks in; one round only finishing, one round only escaping.

Every round becomes a live experiment. The technique you drilled is the hypothesis; specific sparring is the test.

For coaches, this forces a rethink: if Roger Gracie built one of the most efficient, high-percentage games in history with minimal drilling and tons of specific work, maybe the default class template isn’t as sacred as we assume.

What Roger Gracie’s Philosophy Means For Your Training

So what do you actually do with all this as an everyday student who hears that Roger Gracie drilling is overrated but still turns up to a normal class three times a week?

A few practical takeaways:

• Use drilling as a short onboarding phase. When you learn something new, drill just enough that you feel the mechanics and can hit it without thinking – then politely steer your rounds toward that position.

• Ask for or create specific rounds. Even in a traditional gym, you can say: “Can we start in closed guard so I can work this sweep?” or “Let’s do two minutes with you on my back.” That’s Roger’s model in mini-form.

• Judge progress by problem-solving, not repetition count. If you drilled a pass 200 times but still can’t hit it on a resisting blue belt, that’s useful feedback: you need more live reps in that exact situation, not more air-reps.

• Don’t throw out structure for the sake of it. Ecological Jiu-Jitsu isn’t a license to ignore basics or skip learning mechanics. It’s a call to connect those mechanics to resistance as quickly and intelligently as possible.

The deeper message behind Roger’s stance is less about being anti-drilling and more about being pro-results. Whether you call it specific sparring, constraints-led training or ecological Jiu-Jitsu, the core idea is the same: you learn Jiu-Jitsu by playing Jiu-Jitsu under pressure.

If the greatest heavyweight technician of his era is telling you that’s how he built his game, it’s probably worth listening – and maybe reshaping your own mat time around the kind of training that actually made him Roger Gracie.