NICKY RYAN

Nicky Ryan is the younger brother of Gordon Ryan and one of the original Danaher Death Squad members who has been competing at the elite no-gi level since his early teens. Born in 2001 in New Jersey and trained primarily under John Danaher (with significant tutelage from older brother Gordon), Nicky has accumulated multiple EBI championships and consistent ADCC medal placements through the late 2010s and 2020s, with the modern leg-lock system as his primary submission vocabulary.

Nicky's competitive style synthesizes the systematic leg-lock approach that the Danaher Death Squad developed with the technical refinements that the next generation has continued to produce. His EBI championship victories at the lightweight division and his consistent competitive output at major no-gi events have established him as one of the prominent younger lightweight specialists of his era. The structural advantage of growing up in the Death Squad pedagogical environment alongside Gordon Ryan has positioned Nicky for one of the most prolific career trajectories of any modern grappler.

Nicky's institutional trajectory shifted with the broader Death Squad fragmentation. He departed from the Danaher Death Squad along with Craig Jones, Nicky Rodriguez, and others to co-found the B-Team in 2021. The B-Team's subsequent competitive output (and Nicky's continued role within it) has been one of the most-watched narratives in modern no-gi competition. As of 2026 Nicky continues to compete at the elite level and serves as one of the central figures of the B-Team pedagogical and competitive tradition.