BJJ News — josh-saunders

Accountability in combat sports moves slowly, if at all. So when Reddit users uncovered Nazi imagery in Josh Saunders' social media activity in early July 2025, the Australian ADCC veteran's response time matched the sport's institutional pace: nowhere fast.

Josh Saunders is still sponsored. His coaching business is still taking clients.

ADCC operates on the honor system. You trust that the organization vetting the world's best submission grapplers for its marquee event has done some kind of basic due diligence before emailing out invitations.

When ADCC released its invite list for the year's championship event, Josh Saunders landed in the +99 kg bracket at what remains the most prestigious submission grappling competition on earth. It should have been a straightforward achievement story: a former professional rugby league player turned b

It landed like a grenade that nobody wanted to pick up. Back on May 3rd, BJJDoc announced that ADCC had extended invitations to several competitors for the 2026 World Championship, and tucked into that list was Josh Saunders, slotted into the Men's +99kg division.

When this went down recently—specifically on May 9th, 2026—ADCC faced a choice. The organization could have made a statement.