Gunnar Nelson is a professional Jiu Jitsu and MMA fighter from Iceland. Gunnar started training in BJJ under Ireland’s Joh Kavanagh and he placed fourth in the ADCC tournament (open weight division) in 2009. Gunnar Nelson was promoted to black belt by Renzo Gracie and became the youngest European to have received a BJJ Black Belt (21 years old, together with Marcin Held and Mads Burnell) and after only 4 years of training.

Nelson spent 2 years training at Renzo Gracie academy in New York in 2008. Whilst there he had trained a lot and learned from John Danaher who was back then, still an instructor at the academy.

In the latest episode of Craig Jones’ El Segundo Podcast, Nelson told the crazy story of Danaher breaking a person’s arm during one of the privates he was teaching.

“So John Danaher was teaching a private lesson to a catch wrestler. You can tell by the way the guy was acting, that he was isn’t really interested in learning, he just wanted to have a go at John… So at one point, the guy aggressively puts John in a front headlock and start sprawling hard. John eventually escaped from the position and put the guy in the closed guard. They were going at it hard now. Jon put him in that pit stop position from closed guard, where he trapped the guy’s shoulder with his legs and he cranked the americana lock really hard and just broke that guy’s arm just like that. ”

“He then did a back roll and calmly walked away and went to his office. The guy was screaming in pain…. After a while, I went to knock on his door to see if he was alright and John was sitting there watching some video or something. He was as a cucumber and looked completely unphased…”

Danaher is known for his very calm, almost emotionless demeanor.

Craig Jones mentioned that he had a theory that John Danaher was the feared Long Island serial killer – who was arrested about two weeks ago:

The Long Island serial killer, the Gilgo Beach killer, has been captured… And it’s, shockingly, not John Danaher.

This was mindblowing to me, because the whole time I lived in New York, there were rumors of who the Long Island killer would be.
And I, honestly, couldn’t think of anyone more apt for the job than John Danaher.

Craig said that he even spoke with a homicide detective that trained at the Renzo Gracie Academy about his theory:

I was, like: “Yo, bro, this guy might in fact be the Long Island serial killer.”

And he’s, like: “I’ve already looked into it. John Danaher doesn’t have a car or the driver’s licence. So, I don’t know how John would be able to get the bodies all the way out to Long Island.”

Jones adds:

But he did look at me very seriously and say: “Man, the whole time John Danaher has been in New York, I’ve always been looking if I can find a rashguard at the scene of the crime.”