New Wave Jiu-Jitsu: Team Roster, Coach and Origin

New Wave Jiu-Jitsu is the no-gi grappling team headed by John Danaher, based in Austin, Texas. It is the most decorated modern submission grappling team and rose from the ashes of the Danaher Death Squad after the 2021 split. In 2025 the team's academy rebranded as Kingsway Jiu-Jitsu and opened to the public. Here is the full picture: who is on the team, who left, how it all started, and where you can train under the system today.

New Wave Jiu-Jitsu at a glance

• Head coach: John Danaher
• Base: Austin, Texas
• Academy: Kingsway Jiu-Jitsu (the team's public academy since 2025)
• Style: No-gi submission grappling, heavy emphasis on systems and concepts
• Founded: 2021, after the Danaher Death Squad split
• Headline athlete: Gordon Ryan, the most dominant grappler of his generation

The team roster

John Danaher (head coach)

John Danaher is a 6th-degree black belt under Renzo Gracie and one of the most influential coaches in BJJ history. He built the original Danaher Death Squad in the blue basement of Renzo Gracie Academy in New York and rebuilt the same system from scratch in Austin under the New Wave banner.

Gordon Ryan

Gordon Ryan is the face of the team and arguably the greatest no-gi grappler ever. He is a multiple-time ADCC champion in his weight class and absolute, an IBJJF World No-Gi Champion, and the man who beat Andre Galvao in the 2022 ADCC superfight. After years of well-documented health problems, Ryan stepped away from active competition in early 2026 and now focuses on coaching at the academy alongside Danaher.

Garry Tonon

Garry Tonon is a black belt heel-hook specialist and one of the most exciting grapplers of the EBI era. He has won the IBJJF Pan No-Gi Championship and was a key voice in the original DDS. He still trains and competes with New Wave while also fighting MMA for ONE Championship.

Giancarlo Bodoni

Giancarlo Bodoni joined the team after defecting from Atos and quickly justified the move. He won the 88 kg division at ADCC 2022 in his debut, beating heavy favourites along the way, and defended that title at ADCC 2024, making him a back-to-back ADCC champion. He has added IBJJF Pan No-Gi titles to his name.

Nicholas Meregali

Nicholas Meregali is one of the most talented gi players ever to switch his focus to the New Wave system. A multiple-time IBJJF World Champion in the gi, he joined the team in 2022 and added an ADCC medal to his record. Injuries — including shoulder surgery — have interrupted his run, but he remains one of the most technically gifted athletes on the roster.

Nicky Ryan

Nicky Ryan is Gordon's younger brother and an ADCC trials veteran. He had a stint away from the team but is part of the wider New Wave family. Despite injury setbacks he remains one of the most technical lightweight grapplers in the world.

Luke Griffith

Luke Griffith is the South African heavyweight on the roster and one of the team's hardest workers. He has medalled at IBJJF No-Gi Worlds and is a regular on the ADCC trials circuit.

Other notable training partners

The Austin gym also houses a rotating cast of full-time training partners and visiting black belts, which is part of what keeps the iron-sharpens-iron culture going.

From the Danaher Death Squad to New Wave: the roster lineage

New Wave is the direct continuation of the Danaher Death Squad (DDS), the team Danaher built in New York through the 2010s. When the DDS split in 2021, the original squad scattered into two camps. If you are trying to keep track of who ended up where, here is the simple version:

• New Wave (with Danaher): Gordon Ryan, Garry Tonon, Nicky Ryan, later joined by Giancarlo Bodoni, Nicholas Meregali and Luke Griffith.
• B-Team (without Danaher): Craig Jones, Ethan Crelinsten, Nick Rodriguez, Oliver Taza and others.

That divide is why "Danaher Death Squad members" and "New Wave roster" are not quite the same list — some of the most famous DDS names now compete against Danaher's team.

How New Wave was formed: the DDS split

The Danaher Death Squad split in 2021 after years of dominance from the blue basement of Renzo Gracie in New York. The fallout produced two new teams:

• New Wave Jiu-Jitsu: John Danaher, Gordon Ryan, Garry Tonon and a smaller core, who relocated to Austin
• B-Team: Craig Jones, Ethan Crelinsten, Nick Rodriguez and others, who set up their own gym, also in Austin

Danaher cited "physical conflicts" and "conflicting values" as drivers of the break-up. He also pointed to the planned move out of the iconic Renzo blue basement and a "generational problem" where younger athletes, enjoying success, struggled to accept criticism from an older coach. Ego, he acknowledged, also played a role.

The split was bitter at the time but the two teams now exist as friendly rivals. That rivalry boiled over again in 2025 at the Craig Jones Invitational (CJI 2), where New Wave reached the million-dollar team final and lost to B-Team on the judges' cards — a result that only deepened one of the best rivalries in grappling.

For a deeper look at the team's competition results and instructional output, see the New Wave Jiu-Jitsu anatomy piece.

The New Wave gym: now Kingsway Jiu-Jitsu

For years the New Wave team trained as a private, invite-only room with no public academy. That changed in 2025. The team's Austin facility rebranded as Kingsway Jiu-Jitsu — named after its North Austin location — and opened its doors to the public, taking members from complete beginners through to professional competitors.

So the answer to the long-standing question "can I train at New Wave?" is finally yes: you train at Kingsway Jiu-Jitsu in Austin, under the same Danaher system the competition team uses. The competitive squad still trains there; recreational and beginner classes now run alongside it.

If you cannot get to Austin, the team's instructional content on BJJ Fanatics remains the closest thing to a remote curriculum, with Danaher's Go Further Faster series the usual starting point.

What's next for the team

The big date on the calendar is the 2026 ADCC World Championship, scheduled for September 2026 in Kraków, Poland — the first ADCC Worlds held in Poland. New Wave will again be one of the most-watched camps heading in, even with Gordon Ryan in a coaching role rather than competing. Expect Bodoni, Griffith and the rest of the roster to carry the team's medal hopes.

Frequently asked questions

Who is the head coach of New Wave Jiu-Jitsu? John Danaher, a 6th-degree black belt under Renzo Gracie and the architect of the modern leg-lock and back-attack systems.

Where is New Wave Jiu-Jitsu based? Austin, Texas. The team relocated from New York after the Danaher Death Squad split in 2021, and its public academy now operates as Kingsway Jiu-Jitsu in North Austin.

Is New Wave Jiu-Jitsu the same as Kingsway Jiu-Jitsu? Essentially, yes. "New Wave" is the name of the competition team; Kingsway Jiu-Jitsu is the public academy the team rebranded to in 2025. Same coach, same system, same building.

Who are the main New Wave team members? Gordon Ryan, Garry Tonon, Giancarlo Bodoni, Nicholas Meregali, Nicky Ryan and Luke Griffith form the core roster, with Danaher as head coach.

Is Nicky Ryan on New Wave or B-Team? Nicky Ryan is part of the New Wave family, not B-Team. B-Team is led by Craig Jones, Ethan Crelinsten and Nick Rodriguez.

Why did the Danaher Death Squad break up? The DDS split in 2021 due to a mix of personal conflicts, conflicting values around training and lifestyle, the team's move out of the Renzo Gracie blue basement, and what Danaher described as a generational gap with his younger students.

Can the public train at New Wave Jiu-Jitsu? Yes, since 2025. The Austin facility now runs as Kingsway Jiu-Jitsu and takes public members from beginner to pro, taught under the same Danaher system. The remote alternative is the Danaher instructional library on BJJ Fanatics.

The bottom line

New Wave Jiu-Jitsu is the continuation of the most influential no-gi grappling project of the last decade. With Danaher coaching and Gordon Ryan now mentoring the next generation, the team has dominated ADCC, IBJJF No-Gi and the major superfight circuit. The split from the DDS gave the sport two great teams instead of one, and the rebrand to a public Kingsway academy means the system that built them is, at last, open to everyone.