Derek Moneyberg Got a BJJ Black Belt in 3.5 Years. Now He's Suing Sean Strickland for Saying It Out Loud.

Derek Moneyberg is suing Sean Strickland. For a hotel hallway comment, and the implication that a financial influencer with zero competition record might not be a legitimate BJJ black belt.

Derek Moneyberg is suing Sean Strickland. Not for a fight. Not for an assault. For a hotel hallway comment, and the implication that a financial influencer with zero competition record might not be a legitimate BJJ black belt.

The defendant is a former UFC middleweight champion. The plaintiff is a guy whose real name is Dale Buczkowski, who sells online courses on stock trading and picking up women, and who got his black belt in three years and seven months under Jake Shields. He trains in socks. He pays to roll. The grappling community responded exactly how you'd expect people who've spent a decade getting smashed to respond. Moneyberg's answer was not to show up at an open mat. It was to file.

The 3.5-year speedrun

Photo: Photo via BJJEE — Derek Moneyberg / Dale Buczkowski — Photo via BJJEE — Derek Moneyberg / Dale Buczkowski

The belt came in July 2024. Jake Shields, a legitimate ADCC veteran and MMA black belt, tied it on at a ceremony that looked like a class reunion for people with Wikipedia pages: Frank Mir, Lyoto Machida, and Glover Teixeira stood next to Moneyberg in matching "Choose to Conquer" t-shirts. A survey of nearly 2,000 practitioners found the average path to a BJJ black belt takes 13.3 years. Moneyberg did it in 42 months, a timeline typically associated with people who actually compete at Worlds. Moneyberg does not compete at Worlds. Moneyberg does not compete anywhere.

His training, by his own description, is private sessions with high-level athletes. Paid. Scheduled. One-on-one. Craig Jones posted receipts showing Moneyberg has paid meaningful money for interviews and training access. Moneyberg's defense of the belt is that he has logged "about 3,000 hours on the mats" and that Royce Gracie told him he'd "done ten years of work in three and a half." Royce, for what it's worth, is not credited on the promotion certificate.

Mikey Musumeci, the UFC BJJ bantamweight champion and a multi-time IBJJF world champion, said he "would never give someone a black belt in that time." Vinny Magalhaes, ADCC veteran and noted diplomat, said the timeline "contradicts typical elite athlete development." Even one of Jake Shields's own students reportedly called out the promotion and suggested Moneyberg "should face a blue belt." The consensus among grapplers who earned the belt the slow way, which is every way that doesn't involve a Venmo receipt, is that this does not add up.

Enter Strickland

Then Sean Strickland showed up.

Strickland is a former UFC middleweight champion and a man whose idea of diplomacy is a flying knee. He ran into Moneyberg at a hotel and, according to multiple accounts, called him a scam artist. Not on a podcast. Not in a press scrum. In a hallway, to his face.

Moneyberg's response, in a now-infamous interview, was that Strickland had said "very nasty things that are false" and that the lawsuit was about protecting his "reputation and brand." He confirmed the filing. He did not confirm any upcoming open-mat sessions. When asked about critics, he offered his standard response: "The number one thing a hater hates is himself." The critics were, by that point, a UFC champion, a UFC BJJ champion, an ADCC veteran, and one of his own professor's blue belts. That's a lot of hating.

The one sport where the test is public

Moneyberg's strategy has a problem that is specific to BJJ.

A BJJ black belt, whatever else it means, is a competency certification. The claim it encodes is that the holder can survive and win against experienced opposition. There is no paper version of this test. There is no private version. The verification protocol is free, public, and happens every Tuesday at 7 pm in every gym in America. You pull on a gi. You bow. Someone better than you tries to choke you. If you're a black belt, it takes them a while. If you're not, it doesn't.

Photo: Photo via BroBible — Sean Strickland, UFC Houston post-fight press conference (Feb 2026) — Photo via BroBible — Sean Strickland, UFC Houston post-fight press conference (Feb 2026)

Moneyberg's response to the legitimacy question has been consistent. He has not rolled with any of his named critics. He has not entered any competition in the 42 months of training or the 21 months since his promotion. He has not accepted any open-mat invitation from a single one of the black belts who have publicly doubted him. The mat is free. Filing is expensive. He has chosen the expensive option every time.

Anti-SLAPP is waiting

Then there is the legal side, which is more embarrassing than the grappling side and somehow more expensive.

Suing critics for speech about a publicly claimed credential held by a public figure runs directly into anti-SLAPP statutes. Thirty-five states and DC have them. They are written specifically to deter lawsuits aimed at silencing criticism rather than remedying actual reputational harm. They let defendants move for quick dismissal, shift fees to the plaintiff, and punish filings that are really just cost-imposition strategies.

Calling a guy a scam artist in a hotel, where "scam artist" is an expression of opinion about a contested public claim, is exactly the speech anti-SLAPP statutes were written to protect. Strickland's lawyers have a playbook. The playbook has been run successfully against plaintiffs with much better cases and much deeper pockets. The economics of losing an anti-SLAPP motion and paying the defendant's legal bills is not a topic covered in "Ten Commandments of Wealth."

Every gym has this guy

Every gym has a smaller version of this guy. The one whose Instagram highlight reel is longer than his open-mat attendance record. The one who can recite the instructor's lineage back to Carlos Gracie but can't escape side control from a white belt. The one who bought the $400 Shoyoroll and has the receipts for everything except a promotion that wasn't privately purchased.

Moneyberg is the escalation. He is what that guy becomes with money and a legal retainer. The paperwork version of legitimacy, meaning seminars attended, certificates framed, private lessons purchased, ceremonies photographed, and now defamation suits filed, is running a parallel campaign against the mat version, which is free and public and does not care who paid for your coach's time.

The thing about a paper belt is not that the ceremony didn't happen. Jake Shields really did tie that belt. Frank Mir really did show up. The thing about a paper belt is that it is backed exclusively by paper. Every time the paper is tested, against a UFC champion, against a UFC BJJ champion, against any blue belt with a month of experience and ninety seconds to kill, it turns into more paper. More lawsuits. More Instagram captions. More interviews purchased.

The Strickland suit is pending. Musumeci, who publicly doubted the belt, has not been sued. Yet. Craig Jones, who posted the receipts, has not been sued. Yet. The number of people willing to roll with Moneyberg publicly remains exactly where it started: zero.

You know who doesn't need to sue anyone? Someone with a competition record. Every gym has the guy who confuses paperwork with proof. Most gyms don't have the budget to sue their way out of the confusion.

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