Kendall Reusing

Born on October 29, 1997, in Dana Point, Orange County, California, Kendall Reusing grew up across the broader Southern California region with an athletic and outgoing disposition that pulled her toward a wide range of pursuits — gymnastics, singing, and acting among them. That multi-disciplinary drive eventually channeled itself into a singular passion for martial arts and grappling.

Brazilian jiu-jitsu was the first martial art Reusing ever practiced, introduced to her at age 5 through the direct influence of her parents. By age 7, she was training BJJ under coach Ricardo Guimarães alongside her father, Tom Reusing. Her early exposure to judo alongside BJJ built a well-rounded grappling foundation — a diverse technical base established well before her teenage years that would prove invaluable throughout her athletic career.

At 13, Reusing made a deliberate decision to step away from both BJJ and judo to focus exclusively on wrestling. The choice paid immediate dividends. During her high school career, she captured a California State Championship and four US National Championships, establishing herself as one of the country's top prep wrestlers.

In 2012, she began competing internationally with Team USA, training out of the US Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colorado. Her tenure with Team USA extended through 2016 — a sustained period of elite competition and high-level development on the international wrestling circuit. The discipline, tactical maturity, and competitive volume she accumulated during those years would later sharpen the focused, technically diverse approach she brought back to the grappling mats.

After returning to California in 2016, Reusing re-engaged with Brazilian jiu-jitsu and made up for her years away with remarkable speed. Backed by elite wrestling instincts and an early BJJ foundation, she began accumulating titles across multiple organizations and belt levels at a rapid pace.

At blue belt, she claimed the IBJJF World Championship No-Gi title in 2016. She followed with the IBJJF World Championship at purple belt in 2017, then added the UAEJJF Abu Dhabi World Pro title at purple belt in 2018. That same year at brown belt, she earned another IBJJF World Championship No-Gi gold medal — underscoring a consistent dominance across rank levels. The compressed timeline from her return to the sport through her ascent to the highest rank reflected both her accumulated grappling experience and her aggressive pursuit of competitive excellence. In July 2019, Tom Reusing promoted Kendall to black belt, a milestone marking not just a rank, but the formal recognition of a complete and battle-tested grappler.

Reusing's transition to black belt competition was seamless and immediately productive. In 2019, she won both the SJJIF World Championship and the IBJJF World Championship No-Gi, announcing herself as a top-tier force at the sport's highest level. Competing in the Super Pesado division (over 79.30 kg / 175.0 lbs) under the Gracie Barra banner and representing the United States internationally, she continued building one of the most decorated black belt records of her generation.

In 2021, she won the IBJJF Pan Championship No-Gi and captured the ADCC East Coast Trials, earning qualification for ADCC Worlds — a significant benchmark in submission grappling. Her open-weight credentials became particularly evident through her Polaris performances: she claimed the Polaris Open Weight Championship in both 2022 and 2023, demonstrating a consistent ability to compete above her base weight class against the sport's top heavyweights. The 2023 IBJJF World Championship No-Gi gold further cemented her standing as one of the most accomplished no-gi practitioners of her era, with her World No-Gi titles bookending a stretch of sustained elite-level output.

Beyond competition, Reusing has engaged publicly with issues surrounding athlete compensation and gender equity in professional grappling. She publicly criticized the prize structure of the Craig Jones Invitational 2, pointing to a stark disparity: the event featured a total purse exceeding $2.5 million while including only four female competitors compared to 40 male grapplers. Her comments sparked immediate and significant backlash within the BJJ community, including a response from Gabi Garcia, who referenced a figure of $100,000 related to women's prizes and emphasized the importance of recognizing incremental progress in athlete pay across the sport. Garcia's remarks were posted during the early September 2025 weekend surrounding the controversy.

On September 4, 2025, Reusing issued a public apology and retracted her earlier criticism of the CJI prize structure. In her statement, she clarified that her intent had been to seek transparency about how prize-distribution decisions are made, rather than to advocate for automatic equal pay regardless of context. She acknowledged that compensation in professional sports should reflect the value an athlete brings to an organization. Reusing deleted her original posts, offered a direct apology to the CJI team, and expressed genuine appreciation for the Craig Jones Invitational's broader positive impact on raising athlete pay standards across professional grappling. She also affirmed her support for mixed-gender events and stated a desire to compete in future CJI events, signaling a constructive intent to move forward following the episode.