This Homegrown ADCC Trials Champion Plans To Shock The World | Road To ADCC Ep. 1

Follow along with ADCC Trials Champion Nathan Haddad as he prepares to take on the -88kg division at the 2026 ADCC World Championship.

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Since the inception of ADCC in 1998, there have been 13 unique champions in the 88 kilogram division, but only two athletes who have won the division multiple times, Saulo Ribeiro and the reigning champion, Giancarlo Bodoni.

With Bodoni's omission from the 2026 World Championship, it leaves the 88 kilogram throne wide open for a new champion to rise from the field.

Past results in the court of public opinion would favor returning medalists or ADCC veterans to stake their claim to the throne.

But in the rolling hills of Eastern Louisville, there is one grappler with the hopes of proving everyone wrong.

Nathan Haddad has been quietly working with his head down for over 20 years to earn his chance at realizing his dreams of becoming an ADCC World Champion, all while staying true to his roots and living on his family farm in Kentucky.

I don't feel the pressure of having to prove myself to anybody except for me.

I just wanna prove myself right.

That's what ADCC is to me.

It's another chance to do that.

We're out here at my family's compound.

So my dad bought this 120 acre spot.

It's, like, 25 minutes away from the gym.

It's kind of a perfect balance for us.

Like, you know, you have the hecticness of the gym.

We have 600 members.

I teach, like, 20 classes a week.

So just having, like, this out here to let me, like, relax and unwind and not really have a lot of neighbors, have my own peace and serenity, it's great.

It allows for me to have some kinda, like, slow mornings, slow nights, then I can get back into the hectic days of, you know, the life of an athlete, hard training, hard lifting.

It's perfect.

It's a, it's a perfect setup for me.

You know, we work together every single day, like, s- at the gym.

My dad owns the gym.

My mom works at the gym.

My brother works at the gym.

I teach full-time at the gym, so we see each other six days a week.

I mean, we're always together, so we're very tight-knit.

And this just makes it even better.

We have, like, a little bit of closeness here where, you know, we can all kinda, like, lean on each other if needed.

It's been awesome.

So back here, we got a little garden.

We got the chickens, so we get some fresh food, some fresh eggs.

It's always kinda cool.

I, I wish I could tell you there was a genius, Like I had this master plan, but, actually I didn't.

We, we bought this 'cause we wanted to live on land.

And so we were looking around for some years, and I had a farm in Henry County.

I sold it so that I could buy something closer to the gym.

So it had to be, like, 20, 30 minutes from the gym.

We bought this, and the boys, they, they weren't not Like, they weren't, they didn't wanna do it, 'cause they liked where they lived, and they thought this was too far out.

But the original plan was not, like, to have the family compound.

It just evolved into that.

So I got lucky.

So a pistol drill, we do that cold.

It's, actually simple, but it, it's actually tough simply because of all the factors.

You've gotta work, under time constraints, and it's 10 rounds.

So 10 rounds at 10 yards in the B8 circles.

All right.

Let's edit that out.

So I dropped one it looks like.

I generally don't miss, but here you go.

This is why this drill is cool.

People filming, all this kinda stuff, so that adds to the stress of it and, and there you go.

This is what happens.

Now, this is a cool tenet of shooting.

You wanna aim small, right?

Miss small.

So a lot of people are real satisfied with, like, A zone here, 'cause this is well within that A zone.

And people are like, "Oh, that's great," because that's good.

This is all center mass.

But under stress, this starts to happen, right?

So if you're used to shooting here, under stress, you're shooting here, and that's not acceptable.

Does that make sense?

Yeah.

He's a, a really good shot.

And he has very high standards when it comes to shooting.

Yeah.

So it's one of those things that makes it really tricky, but, it's good 'cause it keeps you on your toes every time.

That was your best one.

4.06.

Good.

Throw that one on Flo.

Right on.

Nathan, not bad, buddy.

I remember, you know, when Nathan was kinda figuring things out in high school wrestling mainly, 'cause that's when the He really competed more.

I mean, he had some jujitsu competitions, but wrestling was the real grind, right?

I really kinda felt, and I didn't wanna tell him, that he felt like that guy he was going against was just better than him, and, "I'm not sure I could beat him."

And, I mean, the thing was, the day you believe you can beat that guy, you probably will start beating that guy.

And it's easier said than done, but it is, again, same thing.

Like, you gotta approach that, "I can hit that target.

I can get this thing."

And again, as long as you've put in the work.

And that's what he does, right?

He has perfect diet, perfect, weight training, perfect practice, studies me- He does everything right, as good as he can do.

And at the end of the day, man, isn't that it?

I mean, it doesn't really even matter what the outcome is because you're really, at the end of the day, you're just competing against yourself.

Even if you do everything right, it doesn't guarantee you one of the 16 coveted spots at the ADCC World Championship.

For an athlete still looking to place their name amongst the elite, winning ADCC trials might be the only way to guarantee your spot.

It would take Nathan seven matches over the course of two days to win trials.

In the semifinals, he found himself down six points, but stayed unwavering and found the finish with one second left.

In the finals, he took on a familiar foe in Ryan Aiken, who holds two wins over Haddad.

But it's a tall order to keep a kid from Kentucky down three times.

With that final hand raise, Nathan Haddad earned his spot in the 16-man division, all while still representing his family's gym.

Having a lot of those people tell me that that was impossible, you know, it, it kind of put a chip on my shoulder.

I was a little bit angry that people thought the only way to do this is to move to some super gym.

You know, I wanted to do my own thing.

I wanted to have my own path and my own story.

Winning trials, for me, was just the ultimate, like, proving ground of I did it and I did it in my hometown with my people.

I didn't have to leave my people.

I didn't have to leave my city.

I didn't have to leave my family.

I finally did what I've set out to do.

Like, I am an elite grappler.

And now I get to go and show it again at ADCC.

Zevia, listen, every time I win a tournament, I send you a message.

I'm, I'm gonna show you this.

And every time, they just leave me on read.

So Zevia, if you're listening, please, I'm a loyal supporter, just give me some cases.

So this is the gym.

We moved into this building, like, 2007 or 2008, I think.

It's kinda like the perfect setup for what we do, 'cause we have a bunch of different stuff, right?

We have boxing and kickboxing and jujitsu, self-defense, weight training, like, all kinds of stuff.

So everything's separate, which is nice.

This is, like, boxing, self-defense rooms.

So, like, this is a shoe room, which is nice because then that way, if guys are wanting to box, like, they can wear their shoes in here.

But, it's a good room for us to do, like, seminars and stuff if we're doing, like, striking seminars or self-defense stuff, 'cause we have the bags.

This is kind of like our, our room A, if you will.

We got the weight room.

And honestly, like, for what I do, this is perfect 'cause really, it's almost like having a private weight room, but I have everything that I need here.

I have plenty of space.

Like, plenty of weights, plenty of bars, plenty of dumbbells.

It's perfect, and it's all in-house, so I don't have to go anywhere else.

Like, when I come up here in the morning, I can get my lift in, I can coach, I can teach any class that I need to teach, and then I train.

But I don't have to go anywhere.

Everything's in-house right here.

It's just perfect.

This is where we used to do jujitsu.

So this is now mainly kickboxing and our self-defense runs in here.

We came in here, renovated this room, and it's just so much space to train in.

It's been perfect.

Like, you can't get any better than this.

It's, like, a world-class facility right here in Louisville, Kentucky.

All right, guys.

Let's jog.

Follow Denny.

Let's go.

When we create the frame and we get to the inside, the very first step is looking to fish this foot.

My right leg steps over Max's foot.

I scrape it over my knee.

Once I have access to the toes, I have access to the ankle.

If I have access to the ankle, I have access to the knee.

If I have access to the knee, I can put him in half guard, and that's the idea.

This week in here, we've been looking at mount escapes, just defense from mount.

My goal for these guys is to kinda build it from, you know, best case scenario, if there is one, from the bottom of mount, to worst case, right?

So we're gonna start building in a minute to arms being pinned overhead, knees starting to get high, things getting really bad.

But in my opinion, I wanna build the foundation first.

I think that's more important, where we understand the basic escapes, and then we can start building into higher level solutions for higher level problems.

Nate's awesome in that he can train with anyone at any level, and he gets what he needs out of it, and he gives the guys good training too.

So, I mean, he's a great, back take.

He's great seated.

He can stay seated if he wants to be seated and put pressure on you.

Obviously, he's a good wrestler.

He's got that dog in him.

Nate's a, he's a great coach.

He does a really good job of being able to speak to everyone's abilities and, and get the message and context and system through.

So I think we got a really, really good room.

He's complex, man.

He's, he's hard to defend.

He's hard to attack on.

He just has You know, his fundamentals are so good.

You know, so it's a, it's a learning experience for me every time we get to roll.

And then, you know, he's always really good about finding some pieces and, and holes in our, in our game and being able to help us out.

How many 63-year-olds move like that?

With two fake hips.

That's crazy.

If it rolls in reverse, I would have subbed him 10 times, 15 times.

You know what I mean?

So, no, but he's so fun because he's so good.

Flows real well.

It's just, you get a lot of good looks.

Costs him nothing.

It's a good warm-up.

But it's good for me.

Nine different countries will be represented when the 88-kilogram athletes take the mats in Krakow, Poland.

With this diversity of competitors comes varying styles and unique challenges in every single match.

With a healthy mix of returning veterans and fresh faces, there are plenty of obstacles standing in the way of Nathan Haddad.

At this point, I really like when it's new faces.

You know, I think it's interesting to see the different styles that people have because everybody rolls a little bit different.

So I feel like it's always cool to just solve that puzzle.

I'm a tricky puzzle to solve as well.

And so it's nice when most of the field is people that they don't know my game.

I like to push a pace.

I like to get out there and fight.

If I can do that and make people get crazy, get out of their seats, I'm happy.

Truth be told, I haven't even showed some of my best techniques at a high level yet.

There's a lot of things that I do really well that I think will surprise some of these guys and hopefully we'll show it to them in Poland.

Yeah!

Let's go!

This is our 24th year anniversary party.

It's kind of become like a reoccurring thing that we get the biggest water slide we can rent for the building.

So this year, a little bit above the building, coming down super fast.

It's fun.

It's just a good time.

The adults and the kids enjoy it.

Just kind of gives a little bit of a community builder.

So we love it.

It's always fun.

All right.

Ready, boys?

You want to give us a push?

We're good.

We nailed it.

Me and Nate kind of came up at the same time doing all sorts of competitions and things like that.

And Core's been a family to me for a decade now.

You know, to come into this gym and thrive, you not only have to be good at jiu-jitsu, but you have to have good character.

Otherwise, you won't make it.

It's been great.

I mean, like, you know, 24 years is a really long time.

I mean, you know, so many gyms don't make it, you know, half that long.

And so for us to, like, be able to be here this long, support, you know, me, support Nathan and a few of our other, you know, employees here, I mean, it's really great.

You know, here's another thing.

When I started doing this, it was more of a hobby.

I had another career.

So this was kind of like a secondary hobby because I, you know, I love this martial arts.

You know, I love boxing and jiu-jitsu.

And it was a hobby, though.

And then it evolved into something more.

So and now where we are, it is it's a good business.

Both my boys, that's what they do full time.

They get paid well.

So just somebody's watching over me, I think.

But celebration can't last forever.

And for Nathan, it's time to return to the grindstone.

He is not naive to the daunting task that lies ahead.

ADCC to me, it's to show the ultimate grappler who's the best.

Just knowing that history and seeing some of the legends that have competed in one ADCC is huge.

It's everything.

And I think that's what makes ADCC so exciting.

It's the chance to show truly who is the best grappler in the world of that weight class.

It is the one tournament that we have where you have to earn your spot there through hell to get there.

And if you make it, you got to walk through it again with the other champions.

For Nathan Haddad, the road to ADCC has only just begun.

Very soon, a kid from Kentucky will step under the bright lights, pass through the fire as he looks to feel the thrill of victory and escape the agony of defeat on the greatest stage in professional grappling.

On September 12th and 13th, the grappling world will descend upon Krakow, Poland as the best grapplers in the world prepare to do whatever it takes to etch their name in history and earn the title of ADCC World Champion.

Subscribe now to Flow Grappling as we continue our journey to the 2026 ADCC World Championship and all roads lead to Poland.

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