Ryan Garcia

Ryan Garcia, the WBC welterweight boxing champion, took his first documented steps in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in late 2022 or early 2023 when he trained with Rener Gracie. The session drew widespread attention through the Gracie Breakdown channel and earned coverage from outlets including Bloody Elbow and Jits Magazine, offering the public an early window into Garcia's curiosity about grappling. More than a novelty, the session reflected a genuine fascination with combat sports beyond boxing — one rooted in Garcia's longstanding admiration for MMA and the submission grappling discipline at its core.

Garcia's exposure to BJJ extended well beyond that initial session, and his candid reflections — shared on The Ariel Helwani Show — paint a vivid picture of a world-class athlete encountering a completely unfamiliar skill set. By his own account, the moment exchanges moved from striking range to the ground, he was thoroughly dominated. He reached for a memorable analogy to capture the sensation: "a spider monkey was on my back."

The technical humbling was swift and repeatable. Garcia was caught in an armbar and forced to tap, and repeated attempts on the mat brought no improvement in position. When Helwani asked whether he had tapped or gone to sleep, Garcia's response was characteristically direct: "I tapped. I'm not trying to go to sleep." It was a moment of self-aware pragmatism from a fighter accustomed to being the most dangerous man in the room.

Rather than deflect or minimize the experience, Garcia offered a disarming and open concession to the BJJ community: "You guys will always be able to choke me out." He estimated it would take five full years of dedicated training before he could even begin to cope with high-level grappling — an honest calibration from someone who understands what genuine mastery of a martial art demands.

Garcia's interest in BJJ does not exist in isolation — it forms part of a broader enthusiasm for MMA and the combat sports world that surrounds boxing. He expressed that enthusiasm plainly on The Ariel Helwani Show: "I love MMA, man. I love the UFC. I love everybody a part of it."

A concrete link between Garcia and that world is his business partnership with Conor McGregor through Mac Energy — an association that brought him closer to the grappling community and informed his decision to step onto the mat. Of the two grappling disciplines he encountered, wrestling offered a marginally more encouraging experience, which Garcia described as going "pretty good," while BJJ proved an altogether different challenge.

As for whether a more serious pursuit of grappling might follow, Garcia left the question open with characteristic understatement. Asked about future ambitions on the mat, he offered: "Maybe one day, Ariel. Maybe one day."