Thats my point, I thought Victor was fast but I was wrong, like waaaay wrong.

Matt is a specimen. I was scheduled to fight him in MMA but had to withdraw for medical reason.

I hope you get back to full fitness and manage to re-arrange the fight. Keep me posted, and if you are near do come in and train we are also an MMA gym though I am just a jits guy.

My MMA days are done unfortunately. I’m just a jiujitsu guy now. But thank you! It would have been a hell of a fight.

Of course it is BS. I absolutely agree with you there. But going back to the OP, I can’t see an issue with it when you consider Travis Stevens got to BB in 18 months under John Danaher. Who in their right mind would question that? Another example from what I understand is another elite judoka from the UK, Ray Stevens. Got his black belt after training with Roger Gracie for a while. Roger never made him wear a BJJ belt as he respected his accolades from judo. Apparently one day just presented him with a BJJ black. Again, who in their right mind would question?

Two Olympic judo medalists promoted by two persons who 'everybody' has heard of. A very different case, even though I still think you should have given 4.5 years of your life to THIS art or it's more to the benefit of the business interests of the promoting instructor than to the benefit of the wider BJJ community with very fast BB promotions. We already know that there are excellent grapplers outside of BJJ. Some who don't even have any gi experience what so ever but could still submit many BJJ black belts. As a merit within the art of BJJ, I actually think a <4.5 year BB in general is less of a qualification than a >4.5 year BB of a later date.

Firstly, the OP, although never having gone to the olympics, did numerous Olympic cycles on Team GB judo squad and actually beat the person that went to the olympics in the 2012 Games in the run up to them in 2011. So I would argue the same category. Secondly, the OP got promoted by one of the top UK coaches with a solid lineage . He has produced many black belts so clearly has the ability to determine what level someone is at. Finally, You’re being too precious. Either someone has the ability or they do not. If BJJ had official grading systems like judo where there were time limits in each grade, required to fight for each grade and show technical ability then fair enough. But it doesn’t, BJJ sells itself as being this art that is organic art where practitioners get to grow their own game over time. So if someone has spent 30 years in an art that created BJJ in the first place , fought at the highest levels, already developed their game, and continually shows that skill, then what’s the issue in this speed of promotion? I feel your opinion is not that of the wider community.

Jonah likes to debate and challenge.

Demotions in BJJ is BS and would even be cheating if entering a competition as a holder of the demotion belt. I've heard of franchise gyms demanding visiting practitioners (evenIf something is to be considered better than IBJJF equivalent standards, it really should be more strict. Objectively, less strict IS lesser standards (if we're not talking money grab criteria and the likes). Even if IBJJF equivalent criteria is not law, it shall be forever known that you were promoted by lesser (if only by time) criteria than 95+% of the rest of the BJJ community. Why would you want to go there?

So there are 2 easy ways to fix this. Ditch the time served or let people compete up as long as they are willing to continue to compete at that level

Yeah, I don't have an issue with people competing in a higher category, in principle. Though I guess it would might piss off higher belts to constantly have to compete against lower belts. I know that if I ever competed again (almost 0% chance of that happening), I would want to be against my peers. It does indicate a serious problem with the belt system though, as I think you're implying there. A lower rank should not be regularly beating people at higher rank under competition conditions: if they are, that means they should have been promoted already, as they're competing in the wrong division.

It would potentially piss them off for the same reason a university sports team looking forward to challenging themselves would be annoyed if you said they had to match up with a middle school team. Sure, it would most likely be easy, but they're not the same peer group. But yeah, like I said, I don't have a problem with the idea in principle.