Ryan Aitken

Ryan Aitken was born on October 12, 1993, in Marietta, Georgia, and grew up in the neighboring community of Cobb County. Like many athletes whose careers are shaped by adversity, his path to martial arts was forged through personal hardship. During his middle school years, he competed in Lacrosse, but it was a period of bullying in his mid-teens that redirected the course of his athletic life.

Seeking confidence and practical self-defense skills, Aitken drew inspiration from the film Never Back Down and the striking performances of Croatian K-1 and MMA fighter Mirko Cro Cop Filipović. These influences led him to enroll at a local MMA club with the goal of training Kickboxing. The gym owner, however, introduced him to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu — and the art resonated immediately in a way that striking never had. Aitken took his first BJJ class at age 15 and began his formal training under Eddie Camden, setting in motion a journey that would carry him to the highest levels of the submission-only world.

Following high school graduation, Aitken pursued a career in mixed martial arts, relocating his training to the Striker Fight Center under the guidance of Omar Lira and Juan Guevara. Within that competitive MMA environment, he earned his purple belt, with Lira and Guevara overseeing his development across both grappling and striking disciplines.

Aitken competed in four professional cage fights before a hard-fought title match loss at Conflict Promotion in South Carolina brought a natural inflection point. Rather than continuing to chase MMA titles, he redirected his energy toward the IBJJF gi circuit and joined Leo Nogueira's Alliance Atlanta, where exposure to international-level competition sharpened his technical foundations considerably. That investment paid off in measurable results: by 2019, he claimed gold at the IBJJF Miami Winter Open as a brown belt, then followed that performance with a first-place finish at the IBJJF New Orleans Open as a brown belt in 2020.

The COVID-19 pandemic proved to be a turning point in Aitken's competitive direction. As the IBJJF gi circuit ground to a halt across North America, no-gi and submission-only events were quicker to resume operations, and Aitken gravitated decisively toward that side of the sport. He joined Sean Applegate's 10th Planet Atlanta as a brown belt, fully committing to the unorthodox no-gi framework developed by Eddie Bravo and championed by 10th Planet.

The transition ran far deeper than a ruleset change. Over three years of focused instruction under Applegate, Aitken absorbed the system's positional philosophy, leg entanglement sequences, and submission-hunting principles with the same discipline he had applied to his gi and MMA training. On December 18, 2022, Applegate awarded him his black belt — a recognition of genuine mastery rather than a formality. From that point, Aitken committed fully to representing 10th Planet Atlanta at the professional level, channeling his MMA-forged toughness and gi-trained fundamentals into submission-only and no-gi competition. His participation in the ADCC World Championship further cemented his standing among the sport's elite grapplers.

Aitken wasted little time validating his black belt promotion on the submission-only circuit. In the same month he received his promotion, he won the Submission Only Series VIII — an early signal of the trajectory that would follow. In 2023, he built on that foundation with remarkable consistency, taking gold at both the 2023 ADCC Chicago Open and the 2023 ADCC Arizona Open, while finishing as runner-up at the ADCC Denver Open. That sustained run across multiple high-level events demonstrated the reliability required to compete among no-gi grappling's elite.

Also in 2023, Aitken claimed the Main Character Invitational title at 185 lbs. and won the EBI Combat Jiu-Jitsu Tournament at 185 lbs., establishing his name across several distinct no-gi formats. The arc reached a defining moment in 2024, when he captured the title at Eddie Bravo Invitational 21 — one of the most prestigious events on the submission-only calendar and a tournament carrying deep symbolic significance for any 10th Planet competitor. From a bullied teenager in Cobb County to an EBI champion, Aitken's career reflects the cumulative effect of gi competition, MMA, and submission-only grappling — each chapter building the technical range and competitive resilience that define his game.