The Danaher Death Squad (DDS) was the now former name of the team lead by John Danaher, but the team parted ways and Craig Jones and Nicky Ryan formed the now-famous B-Team.
Nevertheless, the reason for the DDS split remained a mystery for the public, which never quite understood what made such a great team split up.
Nick Rodriguez decided to share a part of the reason in a recent Get Close podcast episode:
We parted ways, it was a few factors. Once COVID hit we moved to Puerto Rico. The team wasn’t really getting along too well in Puerto Rico just because we had some inner issues and stuff. It was honestly a lot healthier for us to split off and do our own thing.
So we came here to Austin, we set up B-Team Jiu-Jitsu in Austin, training out there now. John still has a couple guys that he trains with in Austin but on a separate side of town.We separated because it’s definitely more beneficial to go our separate ways. We were just having a little bit of animosity in the room and it was taking away from our ability to learn.
John Danaher finally shared the reasons for the DDS. It was much more serious. It was a family falling out between bothers Nicky Ryan and Gordon Ryan which followed the death of their father:
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