John Salter

John Salter is a Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt under Shawn Hammonds, founder of the Salty Dog Jiu-Jitsu Academy as well as a professional mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter with a vast wrestling career. As a professional MMA fighter Salterfought for the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), Strikeforce, Bellator, King of the Cage, and the AFC, while as a grappler, Salter has competed in important tournaments such as the ADCC World Championship.

John Salter Jiu-Jitsu

Full Name: John Salter

Nickname: N/A

Lineage:   Carlos Gracie > Helio Gracie > Rickson Gracie > Jorge Pereira > Leonardo Dalla > Lloyd Irvin > Shawn Hammonds > John Salter

Main Achievements:

• 1st Place ADCC US Trials (2017)

Main Achievements (Colored Belts):

• 1st Place World Championship NoGi (2011 purple)

Favorite Position/Technique: RNC

Weight Division: Peso Pesado (94,30 kg/208.0 lbs)

Team/Association: Salty Dog BJJ

John Salter Biography

John Salter was born on March 21, 1985, in Gardendale, Alabama, United States of America where he grew up.

As a child, sports were made available for John who grew up playing football and baseball. At the age of 12, however, he discovered wrestling, the sport that would change his life. Starting out wrestling for the Gardendale High School, Salter soon realized that Alabama was not a strong wrestling state, and in order to be the best he could, he would have to compete and train as much as possible, away from his comfort zone.

Wrestling for Gardendale, John became a 3x state finalist and won the state title in his junior year (2002). From there he went on to wrestle for Lindenwood University in college, winning the NAIA national championship (2007).

Throughout his college days, Salter was always intrigued by jiu-jitsu, but given his busy wrestling schedule during the school year, that goal kept being postponed. By the Summer of 2006, however, during the school holidays, John found a place to train in Birmingham, AL. under Samuel Puccio. John practiced BJJ there nearly every day for the whole summer, a sport he would return to one year later, once he finished wrestling.

After his wrestling career, John looked to enter the world of MMA and sought out a gym that would cater for this goal, finding what he looked for in Chris Connolley’s academy, where Salter jumpstarted his cage-fighting career.

After 6 months of training jiu-jitsu, and although a rookie white belt in submissions, Salter was already beating high-level black belts at local no-gi tournaments. The more famous of which being Roan Carneiro, as well as ADCC open weight champ, Roberto Traven a few years later.

Not one to care for belts, Salter remained a white belt for two years, until Chris Hauter came to Birmingham to do a workshop. Seeing how John rolled, Hauter told coach Connolley to promote his student to purple belt.

A few years into his training John Salter moved to Nashville, to train under Shawn Hammonds and Ed Clay. Two coaches who greatly helped Salter’s grappling development, one that led to his brown and black belt, the latter in September 2013.

Prior to his black belt promotion, in 2012, John moved to California to train at the Dethrone Base Camp, whose management had just fired its BJJ instructor. The opportunity for Salter to begin his coaching career there presented itself and John took it. This was the first time the fighter had a coaching job in BJJ but he thoroughly enjoyed it. After moving to Wilmington – North Carolina, Salter decided to open his own gym: Salty Dog BJJ (2016). The name of his gym was based on John’s love for dogs, particularly labradors, and a ‘tongue in cheek’ joke given the abundance of pitbull-type logos and gym names in the grappling world.