John Danaher

So there was this long and tough preparation, and it was compounded by the fact that as Gordon felt better, he felt a need to build up his own competitive record prior to ADCC.

because he'd been inactive for so long with his stomach issue.

So he proposed one of the most ambitious fight camps that I've ever heard of in grappling, which was he would take on the current WNO champion, Pedro Mourinho.

Who's number one is WNO, yeah.

and also, I believe, the current No Gi World Champion in IBJJF as a tune-up match, as a warm-up match.

Then he would fight his old nemesis, Felipe Pena, the only man who submitted Gordon at Black Belt and had defeated Gordon in an ADCC match in 2017.

And then ADCC itself.

So there was going to be three big, high-profile matches back-to-back.

and very different rule sets.

So W&O was a 15-minute match.

The fight with Felipe Pena was no time limit, which is a very different format to compete in, and then ADCC.

So we had to drag out a 14-week camp covering three matches with three different rule sets, which went in diametrically opposite directions.

And the entire team had to go through all of this over this 14-week period, in addition to the previous year that they had been working hard.

There was a further complication in the midst of all this.

Nicholas Mirigali had to go to the Ghee World Championships, and we had to throw an extra morning class for that to help him get ready.

Nicholas went on to win the open weight gold medal in the Zaghi competition.

And then the next day he had to come back to Texas and begin his ADCC preparation.

It was a crazy, crazy time.

But they all came through it so well.

I'm immensely proud of what they did.