Big Dan Manasoiu Defends Derek Moneyberg's Black Belt in BJJ
Every few months, BJJ's oldest argument resurfaces wearing a new face, and this time it's Derek Moneyberg's. The entrepreneur-turned-grappler has been one of the sport's most talked-about names…
Every few months, BJJ's oldest argument resurfaces wearing a new face, and this time it's Derek Moneyberg's. The entrepreneur-turned-grappler has been one of the sport's most talked-about names since receiving his black belt after roughly three and a half years of training — a timeline that would normally have someone standing closer to purple belt than black. Now Dan "Big Dan" Manasoiu, a 2024 ADCC bronze medalist who trains under John Danaher with Team New Wave, has stepped into the debate on Moneyberg's behalf, and the way he's framed it says as much about Jiu Jitsu culture in 2026 as the promotion itself does.
What actually happened
Moneyberg has been open about the scale of his investment in the art: something like $3 million in private instruction from a roster that includes Jake Shields, Glover Teixeira, Lyoto Machida, and members of the Gracie family, adding up to an estimated 3,000 hours on the mat. Shields ultimately awarded the belt. Moneyberg has never competed. That combination — no tournament record, a compressed timeline, and a promotion from a coach he was paying — is exactly the recipe that sets off alarm bells in a martial art where the belt is supposed to certify something real.
You can see the moment the clip started circulating here, and it's worth watching for how directly Manasoiu addresses it rather than dodging the controversy. In his own words, reported by BJJEE: "You gotta realize the thing about Derek is that this motherf**ker trains. He's done more training in jiu-jitsu than most black belts... Who's he training with? He's training with Royce, he's training with Jake Shields. These guys are signing off on it. Like, who are you to judge?"
The nuance underneath the sound bite
What makes Manasoiu's take worth paying attention to isn't the defense itself — it's the qualifier attached to it. He was explicit that he isn't calling Moneyberg an elite competitor: "Do I think that he's a world-class black belt competitor? No, absolutely not... I don't think he's a world-class grappler." That's an important distinction most of the online back-and-forth skips right past. Manasoiu isn't arguing Moneyberg could hang with ADCC medalists. He's arguing that a black belt has never actually meant that, and that the mat-time-and-instructor-signoff model Moneyberg used is closer to how BJJ has always worked than people want to admit.
He's not wrong about the history. Brazilian Jiu Jitsu inherited its belt system from judo, and from the beginning it was built around a professor's personal judgment of a student's readiness — not a standardized test, not a required tournament resume. Plenty of legitimate black belts, especially those who came up training primarily for self-defense or teaching rather than competition, have worn the belt for decades without ever stepping on a competition mat. Manasoiu's blunter point lands here too: "So many black belts haven't f**king competed and they got their black belt and nobody thinks twice." The scrutiny on Moneyberg isn't really about the rule being broken — it's about the size of the checkbook attached to it.
Why this matters beyond one belt
For the average practitioner grinding through stripes at their local academy, this story is less about Moneyberg specifically and more about what it reveals — a black belt has always been an attestation of trust between a professor and a student, not a certified skill floor. That's exactly why competition results, instructor reputation, and word of mouth still carry so much weight in Jiu Jitsu: the belt alone was never designed to settle an argument on its own. Wealth just makes the terms of that trust more visible and, for a lot of people watching from the outside, harder to stomach.
There's also a quieter lesson in how Manasoiu chose to respond. He didn't pretend Moneyberg is a threat at black belt level in competition, and he didn't pile on with the internet either. He separated "is this person a killer on the mats" from "did this promotion happen the way promotions have happened in BJJ for a hundred years" — and answered them differently. That kind of distinction is worth borrowing the next time a promotion in your own gym raises an eyebrow. The belt was never the whole story. It's just the part everyone can see.
See you on the mats.
Original report via BJJEE.