• Ffion Davies on Jiu-Jitsu for self-defense says she hates fear-driven gym marketing — especially when it’s aimed at women.
• She’s blunt about what she’d do in a real situation: run first, fight last. “I’m not trying to scrap anyone.”
• Davies also talked about the “survival” politics of training in male-dominated rooms — from sexist jokes to the pressure to constantly “prove” yourself.
• The timing is big: Davies is booked for a UFC BJJ title fight on March 12, 2026 against Cassia Moura for the vacant bantamweight belt.

Ffion Davies on Jiu-Jitsu for Self-Defense Is Tired Of The “Creepy Hitchhiker” Pitch

If you’ve trained more than five minutes, you’ve heard the sales line: “This could save you when a creepy stranger crosses the line.” It’s the classic “hitchhiker” scenario — a scary story used to sell a membership.

Ffion Davies on Jiu-Jitsu for self-defense wants that framing gone.

In a recent James Smith podcast appearance, the Welsh star pushed back on the idea that women should be funnelled into Jiu-Jitsu through fear.

Her argument wasn’t that grappling has zero real-world value. It was that fear-first marketing creates the wrong expectations — and the wrong reason to train.

I don’t like the narrative that women should start as a form of self-defense. If someone’s trying to attack me, I’m just gonna try and run away. I’m not trying to scrap anyone.
– Ffion Davies

That honesty instantly collides with one of the sport’s oldest comment-section arguments: “Wouldn’t work in the street.” Davies has heard it a thousand times, and her response is basically: no kidding.

People like to go on comment on my videos and be like that wouldn’t work in the street. I’m like, I know. I’m doing a fun sport where we lay on the floor.
– Ffion Davies –

And that’s the tension: modern sport Jiu-Jitsu is a game with rules, strategy, and weirdly specific problems (like grip-fighting over lapels). Selling it like a guaranteed anti-creep weapon doesn’t just oversimplify — it can set beginners up for false confidence.

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“Women in Jiu-Jitsu”: A Male-Dominated BJJ Environment

Davies also used the moment to talk about what it actually feels like for women in rooms that are still overwhelmingly male. She described early training less as “find your tribe” and more as “figure out how to survive socially.”

It’s like a survival thing. I have to laugh along with the hurtful sexist jokes because then I’ll be accepted. I have to prove that I’m here for the right intentions, whatever that means.
– Ffion Davies –

It’s not a claim that every academy is toxic. It’s a reminder that the default culture can still put women in a weird position: prove you’re serious, prove you’re safe, prove you’re not “just here for attention” — while men get to just… show up.

She’s also been candid about how seminars can get strange, fast — especially when people treat a learning session like a personal tryout. And in the same breath, she dropped one of those “you couldn’t make this up” gym moments: repeated wardrobe malfunctions serious enough that the academy had to address it.

We’ve had ballgate.
– Ffion Davies –

Why Fear-Based Self-Defense Marketing Backfires

Ffion Davies on Jiu-Jitsu for self-defense isn’t anti-self-defense. She’s anti-fear marketing — the idea that the sport should be sold to women primarily through worst-case scenarios.

She even mocked the ugliest version of that pitch: the kind of message that tries to “help” women by dragging them through the most violent possibilities.

I would like it to be more that’s the narrative as opposed to like, oh, you know, you don’t like it r**ed, right? You better get in here
– Ffion Davies –

In another interview, Davies warned that a lot of “self-defense” courses are basically fantasy packaged as empowerment: short, confident, and not nearly honest enough about how long skill actually takes to build.

You can’t learn self-defence on a week’s course, it’s a lie.
– Ffion Davies –

Her alternative is simple and almost annoyingly practical: if you want self-defense, learn fundamentals that help you disengage and leave — not highlight-reel techniques you’ll never hit under adrenaline.

Breaking grips and running away.
– Ffion Davies –

The bigger subtext is what fans argued about after the clip circulated: sport-focused grapplers often end up being more capable in a real altercation because they’ve spent years applying technique against fully resisting opponents.

Meanwhile, the “street only” crowd sometimes avoids the very thing that builds composure — hard rounds, pressure, and stress.

Davies’ stance cuts through all of it: train because you enjoy it, because you want to compete, because you like getting better. If self-defense benefits come with that, great — but don’t make fear the entry fee.

What Comes Next For Ffion Davies on Jiu-Jitsu for Self-Defense

Davies isn’t just making noise — she’s about to compete under a brighter spotlight. She coaches at Armour Jiu-Jitsu in southwest London, and she’s booked for March 12, 2026 in UFC BJJ against 19-year-old standout Cassia Moura, with a vacant bantamweight title on the line.

If she wins, the sport gets a champion who’s openly calling out the way Jiu-Jitsu is sold. If she loses, her message still lands: women shouldn’t need a nightmare scenario to justify doing a sport.

Ffion Davies on Jiu-Jitsu for self-defense is basically drawing a hard boundary: Jiu-Jitsu can be useful — but it’s allowed to be fun. And if the only way a gym can market itself is by painting the world as a parade of creepy hitchhikers, maybe the problem isn’t women’s “lack of confidence.” Maybe it’s the pitch.

• Chris Hemsworth says he picked up a hitchhiker on a dark road outside Vancouver years ago — and the conversation quickly turned unsettling.
• When the questions got “creepy,” Hemsworth says he started talking up martial arts, including Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, to discourage any bad ideas.
• The ride ended without incident, but the Chris Hemsworth creepy hitchhiker story hit a nerve with grapplers who know how often “yeah, I train” becomes social armor.
• Hemsworth has also admitted he’s tempted by the idea of a real MMA fight — even if he thinks he’d get planted.

Hemsworth has played gods, soldiers, and superhero bruisers on screen — but in his most viral “fight story,” he didn’t throw a punch.

The Chris Hemsworth creepy hitchhiker story is basically a real-world pressure test: late at night, alone on a highway, you realize you don’t actually know the person sitting a few feet away… and they’re suddenly asking the kind of questions that make your gut tighten.

According to Hemsworth, it happened years ago while he was in Vancouver filming and driving back from Whistler in the evening. He picked up a hitchhiker on impulse — the kind of decision that feels harmless right up until it doesn’t.

“It started to get real sort of creepy.”
– Chris Hemsworth –

A Late-Night Pickup That Turned Into An Interrogation

Hemsworth describes the vibe shift as fast and unmistakable. What starts as normal small talk becomes a string of increasingly personal questions — where you’re from, what you’re doing here, where you’re staying — the kind of probing that doesn’t feel like curiosity so much as information gathering.

If you’ve ever been cornered by someone who’s “just chatting” but somehow steering the conversation into your routines, your location, and how alone you are, you know the exact sensation. It’s not a jump-scare moment. It’s a slow, creeping realization that the situation is no longer neutral.

And in a car, at night, on a dark road, the options are limited. You can’t simply step away. You can’t create distance. You’re trapped in close quarters with someone you don’t know — and you can feel the mental math start running in the background:

How do I keep this calm? How do I end this safely? How do I make this person rethink whatever they’re thinking?

Hemsworth says the ride ultimately ended without incident. But the tension in the story comes from the part everyone recognizes: that moment where you don’t actually have proof something bad is happening — you just know you need to change the energy now.

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Chris Hemsworth Creepy Hitchhiker Story: The “I Train Jiu-Jitsu” Bluff

Hemsworth’s move wasn’t to escalate. It was to reframe.

Instead of answering the personal questions, he says he started talking about martial arts — painting himself as someone who’s not an easy target. Not in a chest-thumping, “I’ll smash you” way… but in a casual, matter-of-fact way that signals capability.

“Yeah I just do heaps of martial arts… a lot of jiu-jitsu… and a big background in boxing.”
– Chris Hemsworth –

This is the part that will make grapplers smirk, because it’s a weirdly common experience: Jiu-Jitsu isn’t just something you train — it’s something you sometimes mention when a situation feels off.

You’re not promising violence. You’re not trying to intimidate anyone into a fight. You’re just adding a new piece of information to the room: I’m not helpless. I’m not panicking. I’m not the kind of person you can push around.

The Chris Hemsworth creepy hitchhiker story is also a kind of de-escalation tool. The point isn’t to challenge. The point is to quietly discourage. Because the reality is, most sketchy situations don’t need a hero moment — they need a safe exit.

Hemsworth also joked that he brought up the Australian horror film Wolf Creek during the conversation, basically acknowledging the exact cultural nightmare scenario his story resembles.

Jiu-Jitsu As Social Armor (And Why That’s Complicated)

Let’s be honest: talking about training can work. Not always — and it’s not foolproof — but it can shift how someone reads you. People looking for an easy target tend to back away from uncertainty. “This person might be a problem” is often enough to cool things down.

But there’s a second layer that matters for anyone who actually trains: saying you do Jiu-Jitsu isn’t a magic spell. It’s not a guarantee. And it’s definitely not an invitation to “prove it.”

The safest version of Hemsworth’s tactic isn’t to sell yourself as a cage fighter. It’s to use confident, calm communication to buy yourself space and time — and then get out of the situation as cleanly as possible. If you’re in a genuinely dangerous moment, the goal isn’t to win. It’s to go home.

That’s why the story resonates with Jiu-Jitsu people: we all know the gap between training-room confidence and real-life risk. The mats give you tools — posture, composure, problem-solving under pressure — but the smartest “self-defense” is still avoiding the fight entirely.

From Hitchhiker Tension To Cage Curiosity

The funny part is that while Hemsworth’s most relatable “fight story” is basically a bluff and a vibe shift, he’s also spoken openly about being tempted by a real MMA bout — the ultimate “let’s see if this works outside the gym” experiment.

“I’ve trained a lot and sparred a lot over the years.”
– Chris Hemsworth –

He’s also been quick to admit the reality check that would come with it — that there’s a huge difference between training for roles and stepping into a sanctioned fight where the other person is trying to separate you from consciousness as a full-time job.

That contrast is exactly what makes the hitchhiker story pop: in the car, he didn’t need to be a superhero. He needed to be credible enough to end the weirdness and get to the finish line safely.

And the Jiu-Jitsu thread running through all of it — from “I train” as a deterrent, to “I’m tempted” as a fantasy — is why the Chris Hemsworth creepy hitchhiker story became a grappling-world conversation instead of just another celebrity anecdote.

• John Danaher great grapplers don’t go after new moves — they learn how to truly “see” what’s happening in real time.
• He argues Jiu-Jitsu only looks chaotic on the surface, because the rules and the human body create repeatable patterns.
• His spiciest point: real progress often feels like regression, because grapplers temporarily lose old strengths while building new ones.
• The end goal is awareness — the ability to anticipate, organize, and act before an opponent fully understands the exchange.

John Danaher has a gift for saying the quiet part out loud. In a recent reflection, the famed coach framed the gap between “pretty good” and genuinely elite as something far less sexy than a new submission: perception. Before the great grapplers start winning more, they start seeing more.

The Skill Danaher Says Separates Great Grapplers From Great Ones

Danaher’s argument is a direct jab at a habit most academies accidentally reward: collecting techniques like trophies. A grappler can binge instructionals, memorize sequences, and still get stuck playing catch-up every roll because they’re reacting late. His answer isn’t “learn more moves.” It’s “upgrade the lens.”

The more patterns and regularities you observe, the better you will be able to anticipate and understand the game.
– John Danaher –

That one line reframes the sport. If grappling is patterns, then a round isn’t 300 random decisions — it’s a smaller set of situations showing up in different outfits. The grip looks different. The guard looks different. The opponent feels different. But the “story” underneath is familiar.

According to John Danaher great grapplers don’t treat that as a nice philosophy – it’s a skill gap. Plenty of people train hard. The separating line is whether they’re interpreting what’s happening, or just surviving it.

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John Danaher Great Grapplers Look for Patterns

Danaher’s point is basically an anti-highlight-reel message: the “secret” isn’t hidden in a technique library — it’s hidden in how grapplers organize the library they already have.

He says Jiu-Jitsu appears complex mostly because beginners stare at the surface: scrambles, transitions, and five things happening at once. Underneath, he frames the sport as heavily structured — not by magic, but by biology and rules.

Jiu Jitsu is a game with many observable regularities, our bodies exhibit much more significant similarities than they do differences. The rules funnel our behavior down predictable channels.
– John Danaher –

That’s the click-worthy phrase: “predictable channels.” Danaher is saying the chaos is partly a mirage — and the people who look calm in it aren’t calmer humans. They’re reading the same language over and over until it feels obvious.

The not-so-comfortable implication is that a lot of “progress” can be fake progress. Learning five more techniques might make a student feel busier, but it doesn’t necessarily make them better. If a grappler doesn’t recognize the regularities, they’re still guessing — just with nicer vocabulary.

Pattern Recognition In Jiu-Jitsu: Turning Chaos Into Principles

Once the idea clicks, Danaher says the next step is ruthless: stop treating positions like isolated rooms. Identify what consistently leads to success — and what consistently leads to getting wrecked — then build movement around those patterns.

Learning to recognize patterns of success and patterns of failure is one of the greatest advances you can make. Learning to incorporate knowledge of those patterns into your movement will take this from theoretical knowledge to embodied skill.
– John Danaher –

According to John Danaher great grapplers often look like they’re playing with a half-second head start. They’re not. They just aren’t waiting for the picture to become obvious. They act on early warning signs — hips drifting, head position slipping, base narrowing — before the exchange “announces” itself.

And it’s not just defense. Pattern recognition is also how offense becomes repeatable. When a grappler understands which reactions their pressure reliably forces, they don’t “hope” the pass works — they steer the opponent into the same set of bad choices.

Why Losing Old Skills Is The Price Of Real Progress

Here’s where Danaher’s message gets even more brutal — and more relatable.

He argues leveling up isn’t purely additive. You don’t just stack new Jiu-Jitsu skills on top of old ones forever. There’s a messy middle phase where old strengths fade because attention is elsewhere.

Whenever you add something major to your game, there has to be a period where you forsake your previous skills in order to focus on the new skill.
– John Danaher –

That’s the part that makes practitioners panic. The guard that used to feel sharp starts feeling dull. The passing sequence that was “automatic” gets jammed. People interpret that as losing their Jiu-Jitsu — when Danaher frames it as the price of rebuilding it around something bigger.

He’s blunt about why it happens, too:

Skills are perishable. If you don’t work on them, they diminish.
– John Danaher –

The Brutal Part: You Have To Feel Worse To Get Better

Put Danaher’s two points together and it becomes a challenge to the culture of Jiu-Jitsu itself. Greatness isn’t primarily technique acquisition. It’s pattern recognition that turns chaos into something readable — plus the patience to rebuild even when it makes a grappler feel worse for a while.

That’s also why some people plateau for years while training “a lot.” They might be rolling hard, but they’re not upgrading awareness — and they’re not accepting the ugly phase of growth where favorite weapons temporarily rust.

Danaher’s closer is as sharp as the message: the great ones aren’t doing something mystical. They’re doing something most people don’t practice.

Remember – many people will look, but only a few will see. Make sure you’re one of the latter.
– John Danaher –

And that’s why John Danaher great grapplers, in his view, look like they’re always one step ahead: they’re not just looking. They’re seeing.

• A BJJ black belt and gym-safety advocate says three “quick checks” can reveal whether an academy’s culture is quietly broken.
• His biggest tell isn’t what you see — it’s who you don’t see: women, accountability-heavy professions, and higher belts.
• He argues a gym that’s been around for years but still looks like a permanent white-belt intake often has a reason people don’t stay.
• Veteran grapplers also point to contract pressure, cross-training bans, and dirty mats as “walk out now” signals.

The Three BJJ Gym Red Flags That Scream Run

Walking into a new Jiu-Jitsu academy is supposed to feel intimidating in the normal way — new rules, new bodies flying around, new egos you don’t understand yet. What it shouldn’t feel like is confusing in the “why is everyone here brand new?” way.

According to black belt Milton Campis, new students can save themselves months (or years) of wasted training by watching for three warning signs before they commit to a long-term membership.

Red flag #1: No Women on the Mat

Campis’ point isn’t that a gym needs perfect demographic balance — it’s that in a sport built on constant physical contact, women tend to leave places where the culture feels off. If an established gym has zero women training consistently, that can be a signal that the environment isn’t welcoming or safe.

If you’re a woman especially and you go to a gym and there are no women, should be a little bit of a red flag for you.
– Milton Campis –

Red flag #2: No “Accountability” Types in the Room

Campis highlights law enforcement and military members as an example of people who often have a lower tolerance for misconduct and sloppy standards.

If nobody like that trains there — not police, not military, not the kind of professionals who call out bad behavior — he suggests it’s worth asking why. Not because a gym needs them, but because healthy rooms tend to attract a wide mix of people who stay.

Red flag #3: A Never-Ending White Belt Conveyor Belt

This is the one that hits hardest. If a gym has been open for years but the room still looks like “intro class forever,” Campis says it’s rarely random.

If your gym has been around for more than a decade or even more than five years and you don’t have higher belts on you, don’t see a lot of color on that mat, it’s always new white belts coming in, there’s a reason.
– Milton Campis –

Milton Campis And The “Missing People” Test

Campis isn’t just tossing out hot takes for clicks. He’s positioned himself as a gym-safety advocate, and he’s the founder of Academy Safe, a project focused on raising standards around misconduct prevention and student protection.

In a recent podcast appearance, he framed his advice around what beginners can’t know yet: the reputation layer that exists between gyms.

New students judge a school by cleanliness, friendliness, maybe the technique of the day. Higher belts judge it by the stuff that gets whispered at open mats, seminars, tournaments, and cross-training sessions.

That’s why the “missing people” test matters. If certain groups consistently aren’t there — women, long-term members, higher belts — the absence itself becomes information. Not a conviction, not proof of wrongdoing, but a reason to slow down and look closer before signing anything.

And that’s the real theme behind his three red flags: culture leaves a trail. Sometimes it’s obvious. Sometimes it’s invisible until you’ve already invested time, money, and identity into the room.

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The White Belt Revolving Door: When A Room Has No Color

Most academies expect turnover. People try Jiu-Jitsu, get smashed, realize it’s hard, and vanish. That’s normal. What isn’t normal is a school that’s been open long enough to produce purple, brown, and black belts — yet still feels like a permanent “trial week.”

Campis argues that higher belts learn patterns beginners simply can’t see, especially once they start traveling and hearing how other gyms talk.

But a white belt doesn’t know.
– Milton Campis –

If a school has a reputation problem — whether it’s a coach with a history, a room that protects bullies, or a culture where boundaries get blurry — experienced grapplers tend to exit quietly.

They don’t always make posts. They don’t always warn the new students. They just stop showing up… and the gym refills the roster with fresh white belts who don’t know what questions to ask.

That’s why “no color on the mat” isn’t about belt snobbery. It’s about retention. Good gyms keep people. They have an ecosystem of training partners who stick around long enough to develop — and to hold the room accountable.

The Extra Red Flags Beginners Miss: Contracts, Cross-Training, Dirty Mats

Even if a gym passes Campis’ three checks, there are other landmines that long-time grapplers consistently flag as “don’t ignore this.”

• High-pressure contracts and weird cancellation rules. A contract isn’t automatically evil — plenty of legitimate gyms use agreements to keep billing consistent. The problem is when it’s paired with pressure, hidden clauses, or a hard-sell vibe that treats a beginner like a trapped customer instead of a new teammate.
• Cross-training bans. One of the most common “cult gym” signals is a coach who tries to isolate students. A healthy academy can be proud of its training without acting like other gyms are a threat.

If you ask your coach if they mind if you go train at a different gym for a class and they tell you “no” I would say that’s a major red flag.
– Josh Presley –

• Dirty mats and sloppy hygiene. This one is brutally practical: if a gym can’t be bothered to clean the mats, it’s telling you everything you need to know about how seriously it takes student safety. Skin infections don’t care about lineage or tournament medals.

Mats should be cleaned after every class with no excuses.
– Josh Presley –

• Other repeat offenders that veteran students warn about: charging for belt promotions, instructors who refuse to roll with students, “no sparring” policies in a sport built on live resistance, and environments where bullying is treated like “just the culture.”

None of these guarantee a gym is bad on their own. But stacked together? They paint a picture.

How To Walk Away Without Drama

The hardest part for beginners isn’t spotting the BJJ gym red flags — it’s giving themselves permission to leave.

A simple rule helps: don’t commit until the gym earns it. Take trial classes. Watch how the coach corrects people. Notice who sticks around after class and how they talk to new students. Ask direct questions about membership terms, hygiene routines, and whether visitors from other gyms are welcome.

If something feels off, you don’t owe anyone a debate. You can just say, “Thanks for the class,” and keep shopping. The right academy won’t guilt-trip you for testing the waters — it’ll expect it.

Because the best gyms don’t need to trap students. They keep them.

• Nicholas Meregali says being against anabolic steroids early in his career left him physically behind — and cost him matches.
• Nicholas Meregali blames steroids right as he prepares to return after a 17-month injury layoff that included four operations.
• He’s also taking a shot at the Craig Jones Invitational (CJI), saying it “entered to divide the industry,” while praising UFC BJJ’s structure.
• Meregali says the plan is to compete four times in 2026 — and he’s framing UFC BJJ as a turning point for fighter pay, promotion, and legitimacy.

Nicholas Meregali has a gift for dropping one sentence that turns into three different arguments. This week’s version is a beauty: Nicholas Meregali blames steroids — not by pointing fingers at rivals, but by saying his early refusal to touch them left him “skinny and frail” and losing to more physical opponents.

That would be enough on its own in a sport that has spent the last decade arguing in circles about PEDs.

But Meregali didn’t stop there. With his UFC BJJ return coming up after a long injury spell, he also fired a warning shot at CJI, and pitched UFC BJJ as the first serious attempt to build a real “career ladder” for elite grapplers.

In other words: comeback season, but make it combustible.

Nicholas Meregali Blames Steroids Before UFC BJJ Debut

Meregali’s comments came on a recent appearance on the Connect Cast podcast, where he looked back at his early competitive years and how he thinks his game — and body — changed over time.

I was always a very skinny and frail guy. And I lost matches because of a lack of physicality. I was always against anabolic st**oids, etc., blah blah blah.
– Nicholas Meregali –

That line hits a nerve because it’s doing two things at once.

First, it’s a blunt admission: he believes he got out-muscled early, and that mattered. Second, it’s a not-so-subtle nod to the reality of high-level grappling, where “physical development” isn’t always explained by kettlebells and chicken breast.

Meregali didn’t frame it as a moral victory, either. He framed it like a competitive mistake — almost like saying he tried to play chess while everyone else brought a shotgun.

He also broke down what he considers the four pillars of success — and said he was missing two of them.

I didn’t have those two, those other two aspects, the tactical and the physical.
– Nicholas Meregali –

Whether people agree with his logic or hate the implication, the reason the clip spread is simple: it’s rare for an athlete at that level to talk like that publicly without wrapping it in layers of PR foam.

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The Meregali Comeback Setup: 17 Months Out, Four Surgeries

The timing is a huge part of the story. Meregali is preparing to return after roughly 17 months away from competition, a stretch tied to multiple injuries and four operations.

That matters because it changes how fans and rivals interpret everything he says. If he shows up looking sharp and runs through opponents, the quote becomes a “told you so” moment. If he looks slower, smaller, or tentative, it becomes ammunition in the other direction.

Meregali has also pointed to tactical maturity as a major factor in his rise — and credited a more systematic approach for helping him understand how to control matches beyond just being technically better.

Then, when I moved here and I started to understand a little bit. How John (Danaher) sees the jiu-jitsu, (and) that was naturally put into my game… I kind of came to understand this issue of grip control and tactical issues.
– Nicholas Meregali –

He’s even linked a major injury moment to tactical decision-making.

Because of over-confidence I forgot tactics.
– Nicholas Meregali –

Craig Jones Invitational (CJI) Catches A Stray — And It’s Not Just Promotion Beef

Meregali didn’t just praise his new home. He also went out of his way to frame CJI as the wrong kind of disruption — the kind that fractures an already small ecosystem.

CJI entered to divide the industry in a negative way.
– Nicholas Meregali –

That’s a loaded statement, because “divide the industry” is basically grappling’s current religion: everyone believes the sport needs growth, and everyone has a different theory for how to get there.

Meregali’s theory is structure. He’s painting UFC BJJ as the first entity that can offer something like a modern fight-business model — incentives, media pushes, and a clear path upward.

I think they are entering to add, they are entering to professionalize. They have structure to put me where I want, in the sense of career, brand, finances.
– Nicholas Meregali –

He also laid out the type of performance-based ladder he thinks grappling has been missing. If you’re trying to build a “click-first” storyline, it’s almost perfect: a star grappler returns, stirs the PED pot, and plants a flag in the middle of the sport’s promotion war.

Nicholas Meregali Blames Steroids and Calls for “Professional” Grappling

Here’s why this story isn’t going away in a day or two: the three arguments Meregali sparked all point at the same question — what does “professional grappling” actually look like?

If a promotion wants to present itself as a “big leagues” platform, people will ask about the full package:

• Consistent matchmaking.
• Real marketing.
• Athlete pay that scales.
• And yes, how they handle PEDs.

That last part is unavoidable now that Nicholas Meregali blames steroids in public and ties it to competitive outcomes. UFC BJJ has already been discussed as a promotion looking at UFC BJJ drug testing in 2026, but details around how that would work haven’t been clearly defined publicly — whether it would be comprehensive, limited to champions, or handled differently than fans expect.

And beyond the competition side, grappling’s “professional era” argument is also getting pulled toward gym culture and safety standards.

In the same week Meregali is selling a cleaner business structure, other voices in the sport are pushing for cleaner guardrails around academy conduct — background checks, clear policies, and accountability systems more common in other youth sports.

So Meregali’s quotes aren’t just “spicy takes.” They’re gasoline on questions the sport has been dodging for years: who gets paid, who gets promoted, what rules actually matter, and what kind of oversight comes with growth.