Matthew Tesla earned his brown belt under John Danaher at Renzo Gracie Academy's Blue Basement in New York, establishing himself as one of the early members of the Danaher Death Squad competition team. Immersed in Danaher's systematic, ground-up approach to no-gi grappling, Tesla developed a highly technical style centered on leg entanglements — a defining hallmark of the squad's identity during its formative New York years.

Training daily alongside Gordon Ryan, Nicky Ryan, Ethan Crelinsten, and Oliver Taza, Tesla was a fixture in one of the most productive training environments in modern submission grappling. What distinguished him within that fiercely competitive room was not volatility but composure. Rarely losing his temper and broadly laid-back in his approach, Tesla brought a calm, stabilizing energy that those around him noticed and valued. He is particularly remembered as a positive influence on the Ryan brothers during their formative years, providing steady, reliable training partnerships as both Gordon Ryan and Nicky Ryan rapidly ascended in the sport.

Through sustained immersion in Danaher's leg lock system, Tesla built a grappling game anchored in precise entanglement entries, inside and outside heel hooks, and ankle lock finishing sequences — skills that would come to define his competitive identity.

Systematic Finishing Across Multiple Opponents

Tesla competes primarily in the 77 kg and 88 kg divisions, and his competition approach reflects the position-before-submission philosophy instilled through years of training under John Danaher. His game is built around controlling leg entanglements, with heel hooks — both inside and outside variants — and ankle locks serving as his primary finishing tools.

One of the clearest demonstrations of Tesla's submission grappling craft came at Sapateiro Invitational 6 in January 2017, where he competed in the Absolute division. He submitted Dan Martinez with an inside heel hook, then dispatched Richie "Boogeyman" Martinez via outside heel hook, advancing methodically through the bracket before finishing as the event's finalist. The run illustrated not only his finishing ability but his capacity to execute leg lock sequences with precision across multiple high-level opponents in a single event.

ADCC Trials and Regional Dominance

Later in 2017, Tesla entered the ADCC North American Trials at 88 kg and reached the silver medal match, narrowly missing qualification for the ADCC World Championships. His trials appearances spanned both East Coast and West Coast qualifying tournaments, cementing his reputation as a reliable and dangerous competitor at the top of the North American no-gi scene. Beyond those marquee events, Tesla accumulated multiple gold medals at the Grappling Industries Advanced level, demonstrating consistent performance across the regional competition circuit.

In 2013, Tesla extended his submission grappling expertise into mixed martial arts, making his amateur MMA debut at Stellar Fights 14 in the welterweight division. The bout lasted just 1:39 of the opening round, with Tesla securing the finish via ankle lock — the same category of technique that formed the backbone of his no-gi grappling game.

The performance served as a direct testament to the real-world applicability of the leg lock system he had developed under John Danaher, demonstrating that positional precision and finishing mechanics translate cleanly into a full MMA context. Tesla walked away with a perfect 1–0 amateur record and did not pursue a professional MMA career following the bout, but the victory remains a notable chapter in his competitive history.

Spreading the Danaher System Across Continents

Beyond his competitive record, Tesla built a substantial career as a traveling instructor, accumulating more than eight years of teaching experience and bringing the technical frameworks of the Danaher Death Squad system to students across multiple continents. Rather than anchoring himself to a single academy, Tesla embraced what those in the community came to describe as the identity of a "jiu-jitsu vagabond" — moving from region to region, teaching seminars and guest classes wherever serious grapplers sought to learn.

Among his international engagements, Tesla served as a guest instructor at Kimura Academy in Belgrade, Serbia, introducing no-gi leg lock methodology to European practitioners who had limited access to Danaher-system instruction at the time. His seminar tours extended across Europe, Oceania, and beyond, reaching grappling communities far outside the New York environment where his game was forged.

This traveling model of instruction positioned Tesla as an ambassador for the technical no-gi approach developed under John Danaher, exposing practitioners across vastly different training environments to the same systematic leg entanglement concepts that had produced world-class competitors at Renzo Gracie Academy.

Despite his close personal ties to the Ryan family and his years as a central figure within the Danaher Death Squad training environment, Matthew Tesla made a deliberate choice to withdraw from public life. As of 2025, his whereabouts remain unknown; he has chosen to live completely off the grid, stepping away from competition, social media, and the broader professional grappling world that many of his former training partners have come to dominate.

His absence stands in quiet contrast to the trajectories of teammates like Gordon Ryan and Nicky Ryan, who became among the most recognizable figures in no-gi grappling. Tesla's departure has lent him a certain understated mythology within grappling circles — a technically elite practitioner and stabilizing presence within one of the sport's most celebrated training groups, who ultimately chose anonymity over the spotlight.