# Brandon Reed: The Man Behind the Goggles

> Brandon Reed is an American Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt, submission grappling competitor, and 3x NAIA national wrestling champion who trains and competes for Pedigo Submission Fighting (Daisy Fresh) out of Mt. Vernon, Illinois.

Source: https://www.porradanutra.com/articles/stories/brandon-reed-the-man-behind-the-goggles · Updated: 2026-09-07

Brandon Reed is an American Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu black belt, submission grappling competitor, and 3x NAIA national wrestling champion who trains and competes for Pedigo Submission Fighting (Daisy Fresh) out of Mt. Vernon, Illinois.

He competes at +99kg (super heavyweight) and is best known for winning the 2026 ADCC North American Trials. That win secured him a spot in the 2026 ADCC World Championships in Poland as one of the top-ranked qualifiers, after previously winning an IBJJF No-Gi World title at blue belt and finishing runner-up at purple.

## Origins

Brandon grew up in a chaotic household in Louisville, Kentucky. He has described it as feeling constantly on edge and insecure as a young boy. Living in a neighborhood where trouble and fighting were regular occurrences.

As a middle schooler, Brandon tried his hand at football in middle school and early high school. He used it as a way to make friends but also get into better shape. He played offensive and defensive line throughout high school. This is also where he first crossed paths with his coach, Tom McKenna, who ended up adopting him.

## High School and Wrestling Introduction

Brandon Reed found his way into the wrestling room his freshman year of high school, after a football coach spotted him at tryouts and invited him to give wrestling a shot. In his freshman season, he lost sixty pounds and fell in love with the sport. While football gave him his first taste of organized team discipline and physical exertion, wrestling is where he trained his individual accountability and conditioning.

Brandon was forging himself into a top talent at his high school in Louisville, Kentucky. Eventually, it culminated in him reaching the state finals. However, his previous coach had just resigned, and it left his athletic support system in jeopardy.

His previous assistant coach and Local firefighter named Tom McKenna, stepped in. Already an assistant coach for high school, he decided to become head coach. Seeing talent in Brandon and understanding the position his home life was in, McKenna decided to be more involved in Brandon’s life. McKenna taught him to drive, gave him his first job, and eventually took him in and legally adopted him. Brandon credits everything since to that relationship.

[]

Freshman (2013-14): 4-14, his first season on the mat after not making the football team

Sophomore (2014-15), Iroquois HS, 220 lbs: 42-5, finished 2nd at the KHSAA State Championship

Junior (2015-16), Iroquois HS, 220 lbs: 38-1, finished 3rd at the KHSAA State Championship

Senior (2016-17), Spencer County HS: record not available, did not place at state that year

## College Career

Following graduation, Brandon Reed decided to further his athletic career by diving straight into the world of college wrestling; Lindsey Wilson College in Columbia is where he’d become legendary. Under head coach Corey Ruff, he took his freshman year to adjust to the changes from high school to college wrestling. This is where he first established himself as a heavy hitter in the Mid-South Conference.

His sophomore year is when he really started to pick up steam, dominating the Mid-South Conference the entire season. As the year progressed, he eventually advanced to the finals in the NAIA National Tournament. This is where he won his first national championship, 285 lb Heavyweight NAIA National Championship in Des Moines, Iowa.

### Divisions of College Athletics

While most people just imagine college sports with D1 on the top and everything following that, it's not that simple. D1 and NAIA are completely different governing bodies, and they both run in parallel.

1. NCAA Division I: Gets the most scholarships and attention. This is what most people picture when they think college wrestling.

1. NCAA Division II: Smaller than D1 but still offers strong competition and the possibility of scholarships.

1. NCAA Division III: Purely academic when it comes to scholarships; no athletic scholarships at the D3 level.

1. NAIA: Not a lower bracket of the NCAA, just an entirely different system. NAIA does offer athletic scholarships and has run its own wrestling national championship since 1958. Top-tier NAIA wrestlers often hold their own against D1 and D2 wrestlers, although the level is unfortunately seen as less competitive.

Entering his Junior year, he was already one top ranked heavy-weights in the nation and went on to win his second consecutive NAIA Heavyweight National Championship. This happened right before the COVID-19 pandemic shut down collegiate athletics nationwide.

Following a 2 year winning streak, Brandon was feeling the pressure to secure his 3rd consecutive his senior year. Although the pressure was felt, he still ended up winning the NAIA Heavyweight National Title in Park City, Kansas, finishing his last season 17-0 with fourteen pins. This made history, making him one of the few wrestlers in NAIA history to win 3 consecutive crowns.

To recognize his athletic and personal achievement, NAIA awarded him with their highest honor, 2021 NAIA National Wrestler of the Year, which classified him as the top overall college wrestler in all weight classes.

## The Switch: From Wrestling to Jiu-Jitsu

During his years in college, he and his friends would make fun of Jiu-Jitsu, calling it a lazy sport, lying on your back all the time. He went on saying, “Getting put on your back means you're losing.” However, after his college career, he felt the immense void the sport left behind in his life, and he needed somewhere to channel his energy and training. One day his friend convinced him to try a local Jiu-Jitsu gym and just drop in and roll.

Although he was able to take opponents down easily due to his wrestling background, he ended up learning the hard way that Jiu-Jitsu isn't only about strength and takedowns. He was catching himself repeatedly getting into chokes and joint locks, most of which you are safe from in wrestling. This shattered his previous misconceptions, and this is where he truly began to respect the sport.

Brandon didn’t waste any time, and shortly after starting Jiu-Jitsu, he decided to try his hand at some tournaments. In his first two tournaments, he held the wrestling front headlock position and waited for a ref to reset the match. Nobody reset anything. He got guillotined both times. However, instead of getting frustrated and dismissing the sport, he felt an immense sense of individual accountability. This forced him to respect submission mechanics and led him to study BJJ film daily to fix his technical flaws.

He built his following by posting technique videos daily for a month straight, which gained him a big following online. His expertise and newfound audience landed him instructional deals with platforms like BJJ Fanatics. Income from these instructional deals gave him the funding he needed to step away from his college coaching job and commit to training, competing, and teaching BJJ full-time.

## Eye Injury

During leg lock rounds at an outside gym, a training partner panicked and kicked him directly in the eye. The strike caused an immediate and severe corneal abrasion. The scratch became infected and spread, which left him completely blind for four days. His doctor later told him the eye would never fully heal and told him if he got another direct poke or hit could leave him permanently blind.

To continue training without any more incidents, he decided to wear protective sports goggles sometimes paired with wrestling headgear to keep them strapped to his face. Eye gear is notoriously rare in BJJ, but Brandon became one of the most prominent advocates for eye protection in combat sports. This was huge for the niche BJJ athletes who wear goggles. _The sport now has an athlete to look to who wears goggles, making it more comfortable for anyone else to follow suit._

## Major Moves in BJJ

After college and his first rough experiences with BJJ, he ended up getting more than just the basics. In 2021, Brandon entered the IBJJF World No-Gi Championships in the Ultra-Heavyweight Blue Belt division. He dominated the competition using heavy top control and takedowns. No doubt coming from lessons during his wrestling career, he ended up earning his first major IBJJF World title.

Brandon began to ramp up his competition rhythm by actively competing in smaller regional circuits. He earned double-gold (Division & Absolute) finishes at events like the NAGA Cincinnati Grappling Championship and Submission Arts United in Montreal, refining his guard passing and submission defense.

Dominating these local and regional tournaments, he needed something to really propel him onto the world stage. To fuel this, he began training with the renowned Pedigo Submission Fighting (Daisy Fresh) team under coach Heath Pedigo. Training with high-intensity grapplers forced him to adapt his game plan, which led him to expand his guard play, leg-lock defense, and overall submission arsenal beyond basic wrestling technique.

His training was starting to pay off, and in 2024 ADCC Canada Opens, he captured gold in the +99kg division. Following that victory, he went on to win the Heavyweight title at IBJJF No-Gi Pans, which sparked a lot of debate online about how college wrestlers go on to become incredible at BJJ.

In the same year, he received an invitation to the ADCC World Championships. At Worlds, he faced maybe his toughest opponent yet, Felipe Pena, who showed Brandon what it truly means to be a black belt on the world stage. Pena ended up submitting Reed by armbar in the opening round at 8:21. Although some may see this as just a loss, it gave Brandon the lesson he needed to truly level his game and become one of the top skills in the sport.

He received his brown belt before the 2025 ADCC East Coast Trials, which is where he truly gained his notoriety.

## Claim to Fame

In 2025, Brandon Reed won the ADCC East Coast Trials in the +99kg division, beating Nick Hartman in the final. Having already competed at the 2024 ADCC Worlds, this put immense pressure on his performance at the East Coast Trials. Anything short of a win would have felt like a major setback.

When his hand went up, he didn't feel excitement. He felt relief, the release of months of built-up stress finally lifting off his shoulders.

In his post-match interview, he called out Nick Rodriguez (Nicky Rod), one of the most prominent wrestlers and grapplers in the sport, demanding a first-round matchup at the World Championships in Krakow. The challenge was simple: Brandon wanted to test his college-level wrestling and Daisy Fresh submission grappling against the best in the world.

## So Who Is He?

Brandon Reed has become one of the sport's most recognizable names in a short amount of time. From a household he describes as unstable, to a benched football tryout, to the wrestling room, and now to the biggest stages in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, his path has never been a straight line; it's been a series of comebacks.

At the end of the day, Brandon Reed isn't the kind of competitor who breaks under a loss; he comes back stronger. At Worlds, he lost to Felipe Pena. Did he decide that maybe he wasn't Worlds material? Or did he come back the next year to win Trials and call out one of the best grapplers in the history of BJJ?

That's the pattern that defines him: every setback becomes the starting point for the next chapter.