1. Robert Lewis Drysdale was born on October 5,1981 and is a Brazilian-American Brazilian jiu-jitsu 4th degree black belt under Leo Vieira, a retired undefeated mixed martial artist and an instructor at his own BJJ academy.
21 Facts About Robert Drysdale
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Robert Drysdale is one of only four Americans to have won the ADCC absolute division; at the 2007 ADCC he submitted grappling legend Marcelo Garcia in just over two minutes.
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Robert Drysdale was introduced to Brazilian jiu-jitsu during his late teens at the Quatro Tempos Academy in the city of Itu, state of Sao Paulo, Brazil in 1998.
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Robert Drysdale moved back to the US to pursue his academic studies in Las Vegas in 2008.
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Robert Drysdale continued training with instructor Steve da Silva until with his instructor's encouragement, Robert decided to move back to Brazil where the sport was gaining popularity and had more competition opportunities.
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Robert Drysdale returned to Brazil in 2002 to dedicate himself entirely to training and competing in Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
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Robert Drysdale has competed and taught in various countries around the world, including Germany, Denmark, Poland, France, Sweden, Finland, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand Canada, Cuba, Brazil, Norway, Ireland, Holland, Belgium, Greece, Serbia, Spain, Turkey, Russia, England, Scotland, Japan, Bulgaria and Austria; while teaching and hosting seminars in cities across the United States.
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Robert Drysdale made his amateur MMA debut with Tuff-N-Uff in 2008, winning his fight.
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In 2010 Robert Drysdale made a successful professional MMA debut defeating Bastien Huveneers via arm triangle choke.
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Robert Drysdale was expected to make his promotional debut against Ednaldo Oliveira on August 3,2013 at UFC 163.
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Robert Drysdale's debut was rescheduled for UFC 167, where he was slated to meet Cody Donovan.
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Robert Drysdale eventually made his debut on July 6,2014 against promotion newcomer Keith Berish at The Ultimate Fighter 19 finale.
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Robert Drysdale won the fight via submission in the first round.
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However, the win was later overturned and changed to a no contest, after it was reveled that Robert Drysdale had failed a post-fight drug test for an elevated testosterone-to-epitestosterone ratio.
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In late 2019, Robert Drysdale revealed that he had retired from mixed martial arts.
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Alongside his BJJ and MMA careers, Robert Drysdale cultivated a successful coach career, having trained many UFC and BJJ champions: Forrest Griffin, Frank Mir, Randy Couture, Dan Hardy, Evan Dunham, Brad Tavares, Michelle Nicolini, Joanna Jedrzejczyk, Vitor Belfort, Wanderlei Silva, Kevin Randleman, Phil Baroni, Kevin Lee, James McSweeney, Joe Stevenson, Jay Hieron.
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Robert Drysdale was introduced on Countdown to UFC 101 as the BJJ coach of former UFC light heavyweight champion Forrest Griffin.
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In 2008 Robert Drysdale was brought in as an assistant coach to Frank Mir at The Ultimate Fighter Season 8.
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On February 7,2016, Robert Drysdale made his debut as a sports commentator for WSOF-Global.
20.
In March 2018, Robert Drysdale announced that he was involved in a documentary production titled "Closed Guard: The Origins of Jiu-Jitsu in Brazil".
21.
In September 2020 Robert Drysdale published the book "Opening Closed Guard: The Origins of Jiu-Jitsu in Brazil: The Story behind the Film", in which he describes the process that led up to and the production of the documentary, including full transcripts of the interviews conducted in the process of filming the documentary.