Gordon Ryan was in the middle of a huge brawl at this year’s ADCC event.
This weekend, the 2026 Abu Dhabi Combat Club world championships take place in Krakow, Poland. Ryan is the most accomplished fighter in the history of the event, but is not attending as a competitor this year, but as a coach, cornering his fighter Dorian Olivarez.
Olivarez faced Bezkat Kapashov in the opening round in a battle that turned very physical before Olivarez finished Kapashov. After the match, Olivarez and Ryan were confronted by a group of Kapashov’s team members, with things quickly breaking out into a huge brawl, with Ryan at one point taking several punches from multiple assailants.
The brawl was eventually diffused, with seemingly no major injuries from the incident. Shortly after, Ryan went back to cornering, but both Olivarez and Kapashov were disqualified from the event.
Later, Ryan spoke about the event on his Instagram.
“Here’s my perspective of what just transpired, when it was transpiring.
“So, obviously, I’m coaching Dominick — I have no idea what’s going on, I’m just coaching Dominick, and Dorian and the Kazakh kid are competing. They get into whatever scuffle or argument, whatever the case is, I don’t know. I don’t know what’s going on, but I do know that it’s just John, Mike, and Dorian. John and Mike are in their 50s, 60s. So it’s just the three of them and like 15 Kazakh guys.
“So this is all happening, and I’m like, for sure when this match is over there’s going to be a fight. 100 percent. So I angle my chair toward their mat while I’m still coaching Dominick. The match ends, the fight starts, so I’m like, OK, we’re going to have a fight. Like 15 Kazakh dudes jump John, Mike, and Dorian. So I jump in, I crack the first guy, the second that one of them sees me, a couple of them start yelling, ‘Gordon, Gordon, Gordon!’ So they all turn towards me because they realized I was there.
“They immediately tackled me, two guys grabbed my legs and pushed me over so I just fell over. Then like five or six of them started hitting me in the head. A couple guys are soccer kicking me, a couple guys are punching me, but I still managed to heist back up to me knees. Even though there were between four and six of them … on top of me, I still heisted up and started coming up to a single-leg. Then the fight got broken up. I stood up, I was like, ‘Cool, fight’s done. Everybody’s cool.’ So I just ran back, sat down, started coaching Dominick.
“So, thanks to the Kazakh guys for the scrap. That was fun. And always remember, I’m fight of the night, every night.”
