Kendall Reusing

Kendall Reusing was born on October 29, 1997, in Dana Point, California, into a family already immersed in jiu-jitsu — her father, Tom Reusing, is a black belt instructor and would later become the coach who promoted her through every belt. Rather than starting on the mats, though, Reusing built her early athletic foundation on the wrestling mat. She became a California state high school wrestling champion in 2015 and won four U.S. national high school wrestling titles, earning spots on USA Wrestling's Cadet National, Cadet World, and (twice) Junior National teams. She also spent a year wrestling collegiately at Simon Fraser University in Canada before turning her full attention to Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu in 2016.

That wrestling pedigree translated almost immediately into jiu-jitsu success. Reusing became a five-time world champion across the colored belts, highlighted by a double-gold performance at the 2018 IBJJF World No-Gi Championship as a brown belt. She was promoted to black belt by her father in 2019, and that same year she won the IBJJF World No-Gi Championship in the super-heavyweight division along with a silver medal in the absolute division — a statement that her wrestling-driven, pressure-heavy game scaled up cleanly against the sport's best regardless of size. She has continued to compete primarily in the super-heavyweight and openweight divisions, where her background gives her a significant physical and positional advantage in scrambles and takedown exchanges.

Reusing's submission-grappling résumé grew alongside her IBJJF career. She won the inaugural Polaris Women's Openweight Championship in October 2021, and the following month captured the ADCC North American Trials in the 60kg+ division, punching her ticket to the sport's most prestigious no-gi tournament. She defended her Polaris Openweight title in subsequent years and added a second IBJJF World No-Gi gold in the super-heavyweight division in 2023. Her long-awaited ADCC World Championship debut came in 2024, in the over-65kg women's division: she opened with a submission win over Maria Ruffatto, was stopped by Rafaela Guedes in the semifinal, and then defeated Amy Campo on points in the third-place match to earn a bronze medal — her first ADCC World Championship podium finish.

Beyond her own competitive record, Reusing has become a visible instructor and advocate for women's grappling, teaching at Gracie Barra's Newport Beach academy and appearing on podcasts and instructional platforms such as BJJ Fanatics, where she has released material on no-gi takedowns drawn directly from her wrestling background. Her path — a decorated wrestler who converted that base into world titles in a striking-free grappling art, all under her own father's tutelage — makes her one of the more distinctive stories among the current generation of American black belts, and her ADCC bronze in 2024 cemented her as one of the sport's legitimate super-heavyweight threats on the largest no-gi stage in the world.

Wrestling-based top game emphasizing takedowns, heavy pressure passing, and control against much larger opponents in the openweight divisions