Brandon Moreno recently won back the UFC flyweight championship in a rubber match against arch-rival Deiveson Figueiredo.
Moreno got his black belt from Raul Arvizu, who coaches at the Entram Gym in Tijuana, Mexico. He announced his promotion on his Instagram, stating that it feels amazing and that he has been chasing this level for 15 years. Moreno posted the following caption:
“When this started I didn’t even know how far I was going to go, I really only did it and I still do it for the love of this beautiful sport, but one of the goals was to become a black belt and after 15 years I got my black belt in BJJ, I’m not going to deny that it feels very nice and very cool 😅 thanks Ticher@raul_entramfor trusting me from the beginning and all my team@entram_gymfor always pushing me to keep going”
The “Babyfaced Assasin” was recently asked about a hot topic — illegitimate black belts. As per bjjdoc.com:
“Allegedly there’s a conversation in the MMA world about fake black belts or something like that. Is that real?” asked McAfee.
“Definitely the fake black belts exist, for sure. But it’s not a real problem,” Moreno responded.
However, he said that it all depends on how strict your coach is. He said that some hand you the belt pretty easily, while others take a lot longer if they feel that you’re not worthy yet.
“Every single Jiu-Jitsu coach has a different standard of how much you need to know and how much the level needs to be to give you the black belt.”
“Some coaches give you the black belt very easily, and other coaches give you a black belt with a lot of hard work. So it is always depending on the standard of the coach.”
The discussion about black belts in BJJ is a controversial one. Because of the poor regulation of the sport, anyone can become a black belt in a short span of time.
Not to mention that there are many MMA aces that get promoted straight to a rank without even training in the Gi. One notable example of this is Daniel Cormier – Cormier was promoted to BJJ brown belt and could barely tie his belt at the time.