It's blue (or maybe black, who knows!) belts at ten paces!
One day ago, the self-described “jiujitsu nerd” Vince “Bear” Quitugua posted a photograph of Kelly Slater and pal on his Instagram account (@bearsyr). The caption read: “Kelly Slater and Zach in a session with Mendes Bros , Shaun and PM. The world is a better place with Jiu-Jitsu.”
The longboarder-turned-jiujitsu-black-belt Joel Tudor (@joeljitsu) was enraged by the photo. “Crock of shit – the guy has been wearing a blue belt for years in pics and always made excuses when I would call him on it!” he wrote in the comments pane. “If he wants his belt , tell him to go sign up and put in the work like everybody else who starts at white and goes through hell to graduate to blue – anybody on here talking shit to me more than likely doesn’t train and has zero clue about Jiu Jitsu.”
Pat Tenore (@pmtenore), founder, along with Conan Hayes of RVCA, hit back: “love this || joel is officially the commissioner of the jiu jitsu police cry baby club || listen grumpy smurf when you call out kelly like this you are basically calling out the mendes brothers and their integrity on who can wear a blue belt or not in their academy || as far as I can see it wasn’t a rainbow belt and blue belts do exist at AoJ and kelly is deemed worthy to represent || go do yoga calm down || love you joel || we all do but chill || don’t be a hater ||
The other man in the photo, @zachnminskey replied: “Why are you even jumping in to this conversation? It’s completely irrelevant to you in every way, shape and form. You are missing message of Jiu Jitsu which should be to try and build the sport worldwide. Bear posted this photo to celebrate the cross over of different communities, not to judge one person by the stripe on their waist. It’s not like it’s a fake black belt like we’ve seen recently. I’m pretty sure, being that I’m the other person in the photo, that Kelly wants to simply understand the sport and has been training for long enough to do so. I trained with him first hand and I can say, he is most definitely a blue belt, formal promotion or not.”
There’s a ton of back and frothing that’s worth a scroll for laughs. And the feud continued on other accounts.
Over at @PMTenore and from pmtenore: “this is what jiu jitsu is all about || not belts || what did mr miyagi say “belt is to hold pants up” he got his at Sears || don’t be a cobra kai’r and hater || all good”
From haydengerson “Kelly stop being a poser. Earn your belt and wear it with pride. You shouldn’t be proud of wearing a belt that you have not earned.”
And Kelly?
“I didn’t have a belt and that’s all they had handy. Chill out.”
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” i didn’t have a jersey and yellow was all they had available.”
Who cares about fake BJJ belts…what about the terrible plague of fake surfer-clogged-nose voices that have been put on since the 90’s? Real Colds Matter.
I wanna see blood! Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!
Tudor is a great surfer and I’m sure great at Jiu Jitsu. He’s right about the belts needing to be earned. But, he’s also one of the worst dickheads this world has ever seen.
i know guys that have quit surfing entirely just to train. adios…
Joel the Jujitsu jock kook…and long boarding is for pussy’s.
pussy’s what?
Every time I see Kelly in a robe like that I harken back to when he got his ass boxed in by a boogie boarder in Momentum.
joels bjj is more impressive than his surfing. put slater on a longboard 3 weeks and he owns joel. but not in bjj.
what color belt was joel when danny fuller choked him out?
Is true? Did this happen? Is Danny beautiful and… strong?
it was pre fighting for Joel and what spurred him to start, if I recall. I’m not sure choking out a 95 pound untrained Joel is enough to call a man strong.
god damn it i miss lewis samuels and postsurf
Rory: time to update your article on why skateboarding is better than surfing – no fucking jiu-jitsu nerd skateboarders. At least I hope not.
A bunch of the guys I skated with when I was younger are all into joo jeetsu these days.
I never got the appeal. Stand up fighting is fun, nothing wrong with taking a punch in the face, but the idea of someone practicing joint locks on me makes my balls crawl up inside my body.
And they always get nasty skin diseases from rolling around all sweaty. Though I don’t think that’s strictly limited to the jeetsu. Gyms in general are pretty foul places.
Kinda like ya mums cooter huh?
I don’t have a mother. I sprang forth fully formed from my father’s brow.
One of my friends who does jiu-jitsu DID put my brother in a chokehold until he blacked out on our lawn one Thanksgiving, so there’s that…
If you can’t fight your friends brothers than who can ya ?
But then we’d have to make an exception for Vallely’s hockey antics…I think careerism for the lesser-skilled is the issue at hand, skate or surf. But honestly, beating people up in any fashion is a way better byline than “artist” or “musician” for paid skaters or surfers.
Agree to disagree on that last point, I guess.
To clarify: the mediocre surfer/skater playing artist never has to confront that he’s mediocre as an artist because everyone kisses his arse. The mediocre surfer/skater playing fighter will get knocked the fuck out and realize his mediocrity when he’s lying on the floor or in the emergency room.
Not talking Sunny, Johnny Boy, Abberton, et al. at a glance I’d say that those dudes are sociopaths, not wannabes.
Amen.
Can’t they just hug it out, then fall on the floor, roll around and have someone declared the winner..?
That sounds like fun. You could make a sport out of a game like that. I’d suggest implementing some kind of tiered ranking system to identify your level of skill.
Huh. I thought it was a PURPs-LE belt.
I’ll just show myself out.