Bulletproof For BJJ Podcast
Discussions on improving your BJJ, navigating mat-politics and all aspects of the jiu jitsu lifestyle. Multiple weekly episodes for grapplers of any level. Hosted by JT and Joey - Australian jiu jitsu black belts, strength coaches, and creators of Bulletproof For BJJ App. Based out of Sydney, Australia
Bulletproof For BJJ Podcast
How Moneyberg Got His Black Belt In 3.5 Years
The Black Belt heard round the world. Many Jiu Jitsu folks are up in arms about the Moneyberg black belt situation and saying that he bought his Black Belt and did not earn it. Does this tarnish Jiu Jitsu's credibility as a whole? How about the world class guys that endorse him? How will this black belt affect the sport long term. Time will tell!
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A good martial artist does not become tense, but ready. Essentially, at this point the fight is over, so you pretty much flow with the goal. Who is worthy to be trusted with the secret to limitless power? I'm ready. Can black belts be bought? Yes, they can, apparently because your boy, derek Moneyberg, has bought his.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of controversy about this, joe. We need to unpack it. Brother, I went away for a week last week. Totally missed it, totally missed it. Saw the fucking WhatsApp below up between you and Jack and, obviously, reflective of you know, the greater internet. And then I did see some highlight clips of a dude. It gave me Steven Seagal vibes. I did see some highlight clips of a dude. It gave me Steven Seagal vibes.
Speaker 1:I'm going to say meatloaf circa 1995, pre-fight club Barb's got bitch tits, exactly, man. Here's the thing. Give me the backstory. What happened, okay, so recently? I don't know the gentleman's full name, so he's known as Moneyberg, right, and he's an investor of sorts.
Speaker 1:And look, I don't think it's too controversial that people buy belts. It's definitely not good, right, it's been done for years and I think the unfair comparison is people say, oh, it's just another celebrity paying for a belt, right. But what's the content. What actually went down? Well, so he is endorsed by many high-level ex-MMA and current MMA and jiu-jitsu heads and he has trained with the very best in the world. But they are saying he's so smart and he's so good, he could get a black belt in three and a half years. And now everybody is like what? But because of the legitimacy, apparently, of the people who are endorsing him, people people like, oh well, oh, maybe, no, it's. The footage has been shown of him doing techniques and and and training one-on-one. The guy has never rolled in a class. So this is where it's very controversial Exclusively private training, just private lessons with celebrity high-level jujitsu people. And the reason why people are upset is because it is truly unproven, other than the say-so of people who've been paid to say so.
Speaker 1:Who gave him his black belt? So I think it's Mikey Musumechi. We have to double-check this. Yeah, mikey's one of the guys Please Google away. But also he's trained with Gordon Ryan. He's trained with Gilbert Burns. He recently trained with Gilbert Burns. He recently trained with the jujitsu giant who I talked about and he, you know, uh, dan Minnesota, is like who cares? How does it affect your life? And I'm like fair, like whatever it's.
Speaker 1:I actually don't think Moneyberg is the problem here. Folks, the biggest problem about this whole buying a black belt is the black belt at some point in history represented a certain amount of hard work, a certain amount of suffering and a certain amount of proving your worth. You didn't have to be a world champion, but you had to put your time in. You know, very, very consistently, people say you know, I studied for 10 years to be a doctor and I'm also a black belt in BJJ, and you know what I'm more? 10 years to be a doctor and I'm also a black belt in BJJ. And you know what I'm more proud of? I'm proud of my black belt because I fucking earned it. They didn't buy it, and so I actually don't think that.
Speaker 1:You know, I don't care about crypto scammers, I don't care about investment people, but when you hear about someone paying $5,000 for a private lesson, you're like, oh, these jiu-jitsu folks are absolutely eating off this guy, right, and now the sugar daddy is wanting he's wanting to get his payday. You know, he wants what he's paid for and he wants credibility, even though he has no credibility to stand on. I mean, yeah, I'm looking here. I can't find who gave it to him. This is odd. I can see, you know, jake shields, frank meir he's got photos with the mall mma guys, craig, craig jones posted like he paid me two and a half grand to come and do an interview on a podcast. Yeah, that's right. He's obviously throwing around a lot of coin, operates not unlike myself, but that's the thing. You see how they're wearing his shirt? Yeah, and they're wearing his brand Shoes to Conquer? Yeah, that's a business thing. He's an investment advisor, right, and I don't want to promote him. I don't want to talk about that too much. I want to talk about um endorsement. I want to talk about authenticity, truth and integrity. I want to talk about this cunt man. Fuck that guy. I will do anything for love.
Speaker 1:The backlash yeah, vinnie's legit, scathing and thinly veiled takedown of moneyberg's promotion. He questioned both the legitimacy of the process and the motivations behind it, of course. Now, joe, my mum says I'm handsome. Fox catcher, energy and commercial creep. Do you think I'm handsome, joe? My mum says I'm handsome. Look hard to say she wouldn't have a bias. But yeah, I do think you are handsome, jt. Oh dang, I thought you were going to disagree, but that's all right. See, your mom can tell you you're handsome because she's your mom, she gave birth to you. If she didn't tell you you're handsome, she's probably a bad mom. But what I'm saying here is just because my mom tells me I'm handsome doesn't mean someone else is going to perceive me as such, right, right, that wasn't earned in any way, she.
Speaker 1:Now, when you pay people to be nice to you, what is the legitimacy of what they tell you? And now here's the thing we've got to look at that there are people who slave and struggle and absolutely commit themselves to the process to be good at jujitsu and no one knows who they are right Now. Obviously, they pay their dues in terms of paying mat fees and paying their memberships and injuries and everything it takes, the sacrifice it takes to give the time and energy to be really good at jiu-jitsu. We're not talking world champions, we're just talking someone who's doing it for the love of the art. We know those people. We're also those people.
Speaker 1:Right, I wasn't someone who got my black belt really quick, and I don't think getting your black belt quickly denotes quality necessarily. Right, generally, the exception is drawn when you have someone who's like a mika galvan or like a kit dale or someone who ascends quite rapidly. You know, even though mika and kit are very different, they both got their black belts very quickly and performed very well. They went out there and beat the best in the world at their respective levels, at purple, at brown. Has he been training since he was a baby? Yeah, he's been training since he was very young, for sure, but I'm saying that he got his black belt as soon as you could get it, very young, and so probably it's not a fair comparison. Like Kit is famous for getting his black belt quickly, even though I believe it may have taken him longer than he would say. I mean, yeah, that quickness thing we like to Romanticize, yeah, but like you said earlier, it doesn't really mean anything. But if you look at his Often circumstantial If you look at his repertoire, like sorry, if you look at his back catalog of achievements, that speaks Blue belt, purple belt, brown belt Even though he was never a black belt world champion, at each level he was proving his ability to execute techniques. Yeah, so you go all right. Well, that's proven.
Speaker 1:Our man Moneyberg has proven nothing and this is why the community is upset, because not so much I would say the man himself, because obviously the man's a bit of a grifter. You could see that just in how sleazy the whole arrangement is. But it's the people who endorsed him, people who we thought had a degree of integrity, because they were proven, they were battle hardened, they were champions or are champions, and now it's just like oh no, well, we say he's good, therefore he must be good. When you say endorsed, how exactly did that take place? Well, they're saying online like oh, he's one of the smartest guys I've ever trained. So him getting his black belt. Like these are this is like quote Like a video testimonial yeah, this is In support of. Like quote like a video testimonial yeah, it's, this is, this is supportive. And they're standing next to him going yes, we endorse moneyberg. Right, I mean it's, it's the privilege of being rich? I guess so. But just fucking grease the wheels.
Speaker 1:I think part of the reason why people are so upset and and you know, I'm sure you know people will sound off it's that the idea of a black belt. And even if you don't give a fuck about belts, someone proving their worth is important. And in jujitsu, if you claim something, you got to back it up. Right Now there's plenty of McDojo. Fake black belts out there, right, and they get found out, but this guy is so protected you never see him roll in a class. There's no footage of him taking licks. Right Now, let's give a shout out to some celebrities who do BJJ right.
Speaker 1:Let's talk about Zuck. Zuck actually competed in a jujitsu contest, right, like at White Bolt. He competed in competition, I think in Gi and no Gi. He might've won a category, lost a category, but he actually did compete and I'm not Enter, entered a public arena and I'm not saying I endorse Zuck, but you've got to go. Oh, he's putting it out there, right, same thing as your boy Bane, tom Hardy. Tom Hardy competed. He's now a purple belt, but you regularly see him getting fucked up in training.
Speaker 1:Putting it in, the guy is about it. Did you see the post of one of the guys that fought against Tom Hardy? And he's like, yeah, I'm a father of three, I'm a working man, I'm out here living like paycheck to paycheck. And then I got to fucking fight Tom Hardy at a competition on the weekend. Like what have I done wrong? What have I done? And he gets his ass kicked by Tom. Yeah, but yeah, that's right.
Speaker 1:Like that is, that is, there's a, there's an honesty to that. Um, and and that's the thing that I I believe is the great thing about jujitsu, which you can't really lie about your skill. If you say I have a great guard, you must prove it, like demonstrate it, all right. Well, this guy take him down, like demonstrate your skill, and this is the truth of the matter. And if you don't, then it's fucking fake. Yeah, so the I think the the thing, the thing here that hurts for and and again, I'm really looks pretty creepy to me. It looks pretty pretty, you know, it looks like a grift, but but you know, whatever, like I don't know much about it besides what you're telling me right now.
Speaker 1:But, um, the thing, the thing that that that hurts people here right, that hurts every jujitsu person listening to this is that we have, as a community and and and sort of an unspoken understanding of the value of the belts and the value because we know how hard jiu-jitsu is. Yes, you know, you show up and train and it's a struggle and there's numerous challenges, and so, as you progress, you know, in your, in your skills, you're like, fuck, this is really hard-earned. So when someone circumvents the process, they, they devalue it. And when it gets devalued, well it does, and then that can. That threatens the value of the process. You're in, right, yeah, because you're like, hang on a second. We all I thought we all agreed to this thing, and now there's this motherfucker, you know, and that's, and that's where it just it can become a free for all, I suppose. And so, yeah, I think that's what hurts people is that it sort of has a psychological bearing on, or effect on, their perception of what they're doing.
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Speaker 1:But the buying of belts is not new, right? Celebrities over time have trained with who else? Well, there's just been some people throughout history and it's controversy to a certain extent, that certain high-level jiu-jitsu folks had awarded belts to people who maybe didn't deserve them. Right, I'm not gonna talk about, like katherine zeta, jones, ashton kutcher, well, no, well, did you see the clip of uh, which is a brown belt, was a brown getting beat the fuck up by craig jones? I don't know. Jones Shout out Ashton Kutcher, please invest in our tech startup. But you know, like people are like, oh, he's not a brown belt, but I mean, whatever he trains, he's still putting in the work. Right, like it's whatever you might say there. Yeah, the buying of belts is not new.
Speaker 1:But the devaluing by high level guys who we respected, that is the painful thing. Because it's so many guys. Yeah, we thought we could count on you guys. Man, he's sullying so many guys who we gave credit to. Now would these guys say the same shit about some rando who got their black belt in three and a half years? If he hadn't paid them tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars? No, they would be ripping them apart. Yeah, they'd be up in arms, just like Vinnie Magalhaes, my goodness.
Speaker 1:And look, so jujitsu Chewy had said look, it's like an honorary belt, similar to his take on it was like an honorary degree oh, you've contributed $30,000, $50,000, $100,000 to this university. We'll give you an honorary doctorate. Is this the only thing that we have that we can give you to say thanks? It doesn't mean anything, you're not going to be a professor, but, all right, morgan Freeman, you're now a doctor. And if you're someone who studied a PhD and my sister has you put 10 to 12 years on, a motherfucker to get a doctorate and then you see some rich celebrity getting an honorary doctorate, fucking hurts your heart, right, because it is a portion of your life you can never get back. Yeah, those 10 years, that 15 years, whatever it took you to get there, you can't get it back, and it was hard earned. And so I think the key thing is this you know the difference. You know the difference. You know the difference between somebody who can hold their belt up and who doesn't. Right, and I'm not talking about there's plenty of folks out there would be like belts don't matter anymore. Jiu Jitsu is a sport, blah, blah, blah Like sure. But you could definitely say if someone bought an Olympic gold medal, wouldn't that change what Olympic gold medals mean? Yeah, yeah, like you buy a UFC belt. It doesn't make you a UFC champion. So funny, timely story Last night I was at a grading at Gracie Balmain All right, awesome.
Speaker 1:And actually Joel, the head coach there, friend of ours, friend of the show shout out to Joel invited me because a good friend and a training partner of mine was receiving his black belt. Oh, amazing, and it was really special. And the guy, lockie, who got his black belt last night, oh, he got his black belt. Yeah, oh, how good, big props. It was really cool to be there.
Speaker 1:And you know, lockie's not, he's always been a guy that's like I don't care about belts and I think I first rolled with him when he was a been an absolute nightmare from. You know, from the moment I met him in terms of his jiu-jitsu and extremely studious and extremely committed, right and uh, he's just one of those guys. More has been traditionally more of a no-gi guy, scrap super hard and like I don't give a fuck about bells, I just like wrecking everyone. And he's that dude. And uh, last night he goes black belt and they asked him to say a few words and he's like, look, I don't have't have much to say, it's a bit of a. He's a quiet fellow, but, um, he's like guys.
Speaker 1:I always say like um, you know, the belts don't mean anything to me, but then he's like but I think they do. He was like yeah, I think they matter. Now, yeah, but you know, just funny, right, right, like we all say that, I always. But you know, and it matters less to some people, of course, yeah, but there is still value, even for bill. It's like yeah, no, it still means something.
Speaker 1:When you see, you know, when you see someone like that, even if you don't give a fuck about belts, I guarantee if you look at this, you're talking about moneyberg. This will hurt you. You'd be like motherfucker, I think in moment, and we've said this before. It's whatever it means to you. But clearly this guy just thinks he can buy anything. So he's like I'll just buy all these jujitsu guys and I'll just buy all this money.
Speaker 1:But honestly, it's like a pimp. Buy all this money, bro. He's. He's a pimp marrying his prostitutes, like he's paying them for a service. Now sugar daddy's coming to collect, marry me, bitch. And they're all marrying him. And he's got a harem of guys who we used to respect. And now what the fuck does it mean? Not a whole lot. So shame on you, you fucking pieces of shit Selling out the art that you actually.
Speaker 1:We looked up to you. You're heroes. Look at you. Look at you. Look at what you did. Why do we value a champion? Why do we admire these folks? Because they sweat, they bled, they broke, they did everything they could to be the best, and now they're at the top and they're really compromising what it all means, which is the saddest part of all of this.
Speaker 1:That's my take on it. It's not about money. Burke Belts can be bought. Rich people get what they want. Who gives a shit? It's more that people who we thought had integrity are demonstrating that they don't.
Speaker 1:I think that's the most painful point. At the end of the day, it's that I'd agree. What is it that we don't like about hypocrisy? It's not even that the person's trying to lie to you. You can see it. You know it's like a fat personal trainer or someone who you know being a broke financial advisor. It doesn't make any sense. And it's not even that they're trying to lie to you. It's that they're obviously lying to their fucking selves. And how can you respect somebody and I believe that jujitsu is really built on respect, whether it's about how a person conducts themselves or how hard they work, or whatever. You value, right, and money is just a token. Right? Money doesn't in and of itself, have a value. It's only the value we attribute to it. And you could say that's the same thing about a black belt, but we, as jujitsu folks, do attribute value. We attribute to it, and you could say that's the same thing about a black belt, but we, as jujitsu folks, do attribute value to a black belt, and this whole process has highlighted that people we respected and we trusted have put a lower value on it.
Speaker 1:I listened to a podcast the other day. It was titled something like um, you will hate rich people even more after this, or something. Was it one of your communist podcasts? No, it wasn't. It was a guy who I discovered via I think I found him through Lex Friedman. Chris Hedges is his name. Okay, smart fella, good listen, good listen generally.
Speaker 1:But this was one of his episodes and he had a guy on who's recently written a book talking about rich, basically rich people and how the bad shit that they end up doing to society. Sure, not necessarily because they set out, because they have bad intentions, no, but just how the how wealth inequality actually works. Sure, and one of the things he pointed out was that there is a a natural like a bubble of protection that that grows around wealthy people, because all of the people close to them don't want to put them off side. Because there is well, there's some underlying thing where it's like, well, maybe if I'm hanging out and we're having a few drinks, he'll buy me a house, or you know, like you can't help but sort of be enamored by, yeah, you know it's cool. Well, fuck, yeah, you know, like a bummer dinner kind of thing. Like, you know, we become enslaved in a way, definitely, and you know. And so what it was.
Speaker 1:What it just made me think in this regard is that, like, values get compromised, you know the money starts to become intoxicating and then your values get compromised and before you know it, you're sucking dicks in the gutter. I mean, I did it once, but the money was so good. But you know, yeah, like, before you know it, you're like, oh shit. But here's the thing I would consider us both to be rich in our own way. Right, I look at you, we are first world. I mean, we are, of course, we're first world white guys living in Australia. Yeah, and we are capitalists. Right, because we did an episode which was and it was titled you know, has Capitalism Taken the Soul of Jiu-Jitsu? Right, and we are. We. We operate in a capitalist system.
Speaker 1:Yes, I don't apply the label of capitalist to myself, just to be clear. All right, joey identifies as a marxist, slash socialist. No, no, no, no, I'm just saying I'm not. I'm gender neutral. Okay, I'm a they, them. I'm a fucking capitalist. I don't care what you fucking doing a pretty shit job of it. If that's what you are, fuck off. I'm. I'm doing. Good, you can say what you like. This is what I want to say. Switch to finance. No, dude, how do you know? I haven't log into my crypto account now. Get my wallet bulletproof. For finance. Um, you too, can have a join. My coaching three and a half years, I'm gonna tell you, the best fucking stocks dropping right now.
Speaker 1:No, no, I consider myself rich, so it's not a question of that, and I know there's people with more money than me, but everyone values different things. I have hung out with more than one billionaire. I have clients who are multimillionaires, but does it mean I respect them more or less? No, they have domain knowledge and they are who they are. Yeah, but when you were fondling his balls and just playing just the tip, you know, there's a moment there right where you're like wait, would I have done this if we weren't going out on the yacht today? No, no, not at all. No, no, no. My gag reflex is good, but that's because I eat too much food people.
Speaker 1:No, the reason why I say this is what I have loved about jujitsu is that you can have people who are of completely different realms in life, socioeconomically, but the skill factor, which just takes time to build, no matter how you learn it, that's the equalizer on the mat. And you were saying before about the immunity of the bubble of, of, of, of wealth and privilege and everything like this. Well, this guy is protected, this guy's protected by many elite level bodyguards who are like no, no, no, we say he's good. Well, that that just totally corrupts what jujitsu is, which is like let your man defend himself, hold up your belt, if you are a belt, demonstrate your skill. And even in the footage of him just drilling techniques, it's very clear he's not proficient. So to say the guy's a black belt is kind of hilarious. So the reason why I wanted to talk about this is you know, people being corrupted and compromised by money is universal. It doesn't matter. You know all facets of life. Our politicians sell us out, you great artists that you discovered when they're a garage band. They then get signed to get millions and they start making shit music.
Speaker 1:Joe Rogan offered us a billion dollars to buy our podcast. We knocked it back. We said no, because I know about that. Welley joey took the trt deal. I said. I said no, maric health, go fuck yourself. I got too much testosterone. But it is so challenging because initially there's trust, because you think there's a certain value there, and then it does change over time and you go okay, well, this isn't what I thought it was and that's okay, it doesn't change. I think the value in jujitsu is the hard work and earning it and it's. You know, nothing's going to change. You're going to keep going to training, you're going to keep working hard. You're not. You're not going to try and fake it, and anyone who's going to fake it will eventually be found out. But I I think that the sad thing is to see our, our heroes, these high level folks, take a dip for the cash. You know that's, that's what it is, sure you.
