Event: Iron Tide Blue Belt Invitational (Iron Tide 2) Date: Sunday, May 3, 2026 Location: Ignite MMA and Jiu-Jitsu — Gladstone, Missouri Live Stream: MMA Futures
The Iron Tide Blue Belt Invitational descends on Ignite MMA and Jiu-Jitsu in Gladstone, Missouri this Sunday, May 3, bringing together the best blue belts in the Kansas City region and beyond for a prize-pool invitational that puts the grapplers — not the organizers — first. Stream every match live and exclusively on MMA Futures.
What Is Iron Tide?
Iron Tide is a Kansas City-born grappling brand that has spent the past year doing something the Midwest scene has quietly needed for a long time: building something that belongs to the community.
Founded by Billy Radcliffe — a blue belt, Navy veteran, and father of five who trains out of Ignite MMA and Jiu-Jitsu in Gladstone — Iron Tide started with a simple idea and a lot of borrowed momentum. Rash guards designed by people who actually roll. Pop-up open mats at coffee shops and neutral spaces, because it shouldn’t always be about one gym’s turf. And now, a growing invitational series that brings the best grapplers in the region together under one roof.
“We don’t care where you train,” Radcliffe said in an exclusive MMA Futures pre-fight interview. “We just want you to roll with us. We just want you to drop in and compete with us and just be proud that you’re from the Midwest or Kansas City.”
The name itself tells the story. “I have a military background and then just that Midwest steel,” Radcliffe explained. “They kind of just molded it in and that’s how we came up with Iron Tide.”
One year in, the brand is already expanding — sponsored athletes, new gear drops, and a tournament series that’s quickly establishing itself as a marquee destination for competitive grapplers in the region.
Iron Tide 2: Why Blue Belts, Why Now
Iron Tide’s debut event — a white belt invitational — proved the concept immediately. Every match played out like a championship fight because every competitor had put real money on the line, and the payout went right back into the pot for the top three finishers. Iron Tide keeps nothing. The model is as straightforward as it is rare.
“Whatever comes in, those funds go right back to the grapplers,” Radcliffe said. “It’s more or less like, why don’t we support each other?”
The white belt event produced real moments. A competitor from Des Moines with heavy wrestling experience outworked a local favorite in the finals — calm, composed, and methodical from start to finish. “He had a whole plan,” Radcliffe recalled. “He knew it was gonna appear that he might be losing this match, but he knew he was gonna wear our guy out — and he sure as shit did.” Several competitors picked up their blue belts in the aftermath of that event. The mats at Ignite had served as a proving ground.
Now the series takes its next step. Blue belts from across the Kansas City metro and the broader Midwest region are competing for pride, prize money, and the right to call themselves the best at their rank in the region.
“Why not?” Radcliffe said simply. “I feel like we should have been doing this. Somebody should have been doing this before.”
The invitational format is intentional. Rather than opening registration to whoever shows up, Radcliffe personally vets every competitor — reaching out to gyms, asking coaches, tapping into the tight-knit Midwest grappling network to confirm that the people stepping on the mat are the real thing.
“We want people that are gonna show up to this tournament believing that they are the best of the best,” he said. “If it’s blue belts, they’re putting their money where their mouth is.”
Vanessa Randen: Iron Tide’s OG and a Kansas City Jiu-Jitsu Story
If Iron Tide has a face beyond its founder, it’s Vanessa Randen.
Randen is Iron Tide’s original sponsored athlete — the first name Radcliffe brought on board when the brand was still finding its footing. And she’s earned every bit of that designation. A competitor who trains primarily out of Ignite MMA and Jiu-Jitsu and cross-trains at 10th Planet Kansas City, Randen has quietly built one of the most impressive competition records in the Kansas City women’s grappling scene.
Earlier this year, she won two gold medals at the ADCC Open in Phoenix — competing in her own weight class and then stepping up a division just to get more matches. “Some of them don’t feel real,” Randen said in an exclusive MMA Futures interview. “The parts I’m most proud of is not folding. Some of those matches were extremely competitive. I almost feel like those wins were mental.”
She also holds the Queen of the Mat title in Kansas City. But what makes Randen’s story compelling isn’t just the hardware — it’s the path she took to get there.
She started as a striker. Muay Thai at Easton Training Center in Denver was her introduction to combat sports, drawn in by a free trial kickboxing class a coworker suggested. “I thought everyone was the coolest thing,” she said. “I could feel the connection and the energy, the community — I just felt it and felt very welcomed.” Her coworker dropped off after the first class. Randen never left.
The transition to jiu-jitsu came from a moment of frustration on the striking side of the mat. She looked across the gym, saw the grapplers moving, and made a decision. “I’m going to the Jiu-Jitsu side,” she recalled thinking. “I totally did that and actually had a lot of fun.”
Every event streams live and on demand — full cards, replays, and the archive.
Watch on MMA FuturesAfter relocating to Kansas City and landing at Ignite, Randen found herself in one of the grittier training environments in the region — a room full of MMA fighters, strong wrestlers, and relentless top pressure. “I think our wrestling’s a little different,” she said. “I do feel like I have an advantage on other girls when I go to other gyms.”
To balance that out, she cross-trains extensively. 10th Planet for the guard game and leg lock exposure. Other gyms across the city when schedules allow. “If you’re going to compete,” she said, “a lot of the anxiety comes from what your opponent’s going to do. And it’s easy to feel confident when you’ve exposed yourself to that already.”
She drives herself with a competitor’s mentality that borders on obsessive — and she owns it fully. “The enemy’s getting better,” she said. “That’s my reason to not have a beer. That’s my reason to make sure I eat enough.”
Randen will be at Iron Tide 2 on Sunday, working the scoreboards and — if someone needs a corner — ready to step in. She’s already done it once. At Iron Tide 1, she cornered a competitor from Pedagos gym she’d met at the Atlanta ADCC Open, coaching him live from the score table, phone in hand, his coach on the other end. She asked the coach what his athlete knew, got the moves, and called it from the table.
That’s Iron Tide. Scrappy, community-first, and very real.
The Iron Tide Format: What to Expect on Sunday
Iron Tide events run Valle Tudo-style. No stadium seating, no roped-off VIP sections. The mats are in the middle of Ignite’s floor and the crowd stands around the action, close enough to feel every scramble. It is loud, intimate, and the kind of atmosphere that makes competitors rise to the moment.
The blue belt invitational will feature a prize pool funded entirely by competitor buy-ins, paid out to the top three finishers. The rule set keeps action moving — a format Vanessa Randen put it well when describing what new viewers can expect.
“There’s so much action. It’s back to back, it’s action,” she said. “No one works as hard as white and blue belts. There’s a lot of to-the-death energy out there.”
For anyone who’s never watched a jiu-jitsu competition, Randen offered a useful frame. “Even if they don’t understand the scoring, just that rule set keeps it active,” she said. “You should see a lot of blood and tears happening.”
And while she was quick to add that upper belts bring their own brilliance — that effortless, John Danaher-in-a-coffee-shop efficiency — the white and blue belt level has a specific kind of electricity to it. Both fighters going hard. Both fighters making mistakes. Both fighters refusing to stop.
Iron Tide and the Kansas City Grappling Scene
There’s a bigger story underneath this event, and it’s one Radcliffe has been quietly building toward since Iron Tide launched a year ago.
Kansas City has real grappling talent. The city produced a run of UFC fighters during what Radcliffe calls the “glory days” of the local MMA hub era — a moment when Ignite (then Glory North), Synergy, and other gyms had the city quietly punching above its weight nationally. That energy has evolved. The talent is still here. What’s been missing, Radcliffe argues, is a brand that ties it all together.
“We’re going to have some badass grapplers that are going to come out of the Midwest, and they need to have their own brand,” he said. “All these other companies are great, and they make a lot of cool stuff, but we need our own.”
Iron Tide is also the rare tournament run by someone with no gym affiliation agenda. Radcliffe trains at Ignite but openly cross-trains all over the city — 10th Planet, TMC, wherever good rolling exists. The pop-up open mats happen at coffee shops on purpose. Neutral ground. No gym flag being planted.
“I’m an independent party,” he said. “I don’t care — we want everybody.”
Looking ahead, Radcliffe has his eye on a women’s invitational in late summer, possibly a purple-to-black bracket event, and whispers of a joint Iron Tide x Synergy super event are already circulating. “Once Zach gets his mindset on something, it happens,” Radcliffe said of Synergy’s Zach Cummings. “So the fact that they’ve been such huge supporters — it wouldn’t have happened if it wasn’t for everybody else.”
For now, the focus is Sunday.
“Any time we can get some grapplers on the mat, get people paid, celebrate other people, build community,” Radcliffe said. “It’s a good day. It’s a win.”
How to Watch Iron Tide Blue Belt Invitational Live
The Iron Tide Blue Belt Invitational streams live and exclusively on MMA Futures.
MMA Futures has been covering Midwest combat sports since 2012. Iron Tide events stream live on the platform. Subscribe at MMA Futures to watch the Iron Tide Blue Belt Invitational in full on Sunday, May 3, 2026. If you can’t make it to Ignite MMA and Jiu-Jitsu in Gladstone in person, the live stream is your front-row seat.
Watch the Iron Tide Blue Belt Invitational live on Sunday, May 3 exclusively on MMA Futures. Subscribe now to stream every match.
