Who is Matt Barvo BJJ Black Belt in Idaho?

**PDA** · Posted On: 5/26/2011 2:59am

**superangryfish** · Posted On: 5/26/2011 3:09am

Wow I followed this on the UG for like 4000 pages and the last I heard a group of them over there had some info that was to hot to publish, ie people were named and it went straight to the top kinda info

**Iainkelt** · Posted On: 5/26/2011 1:10pm

Originally Posted by King Creatine

Actually, I'm curious what forum members would recommend Ricky to have done. Does a behemoth such as himself really need to move to white belt after having competed at advanced? Even if his new instructor has him as a white belt, surely his skill level has to be above that right? Meh, even as I'm typing this I'm inclined to be happy with his decision to change schools and do it legit.

Still... opinions?

In short I think that this is something that would be best left up to his new instructor. As far as I'm concerned he should be ranked wherever a qualified teacher thinks he should be based on his skill level and whatever standards that teacher has for awarding belts. Some teachers I know would have him start at white but quickly promote him (probably quickly) to an appropriate level, and others would just place him wherever he belongs. On the one hand you don't want to reward someone for a belt they don't deserve by giving him one from a legitimate source, but I also don't want to see people sandbag tournaments by competing at ranks that they are clearly far beyond.

**BKR** · Posted On: 5/29/2011 9:23am

This guy is the definition of narcissistic personality disorder.

**Flappyhead** · Posted On: 5/29/2011 10:54am

BeastFit protein mix? :LOL:

**Uncle Skippy** · Posted On: 5/30/2011 11:19pm

I'm not going to devote any time to watching any of those videos or reading anything more on him.

- Matt is no longer teaching others.
- Matt is no longer putting others at risk due to his false claims.

It doesn't matter how he does at Worlds. It won't validate anything he's done. Oh well.

The info dug up on the UG behind the scenes was pretty damn sensitive and people were trying to decide how to proceed (reputations at stake). If they want to make it public, it is up to them. I'm not at liberty to say anything out of respect for the UG'ers who did the work to dig up the info.

**BKR** · Posted On: 5/31/2011 8:32am

It's all sad comedy at this point to me.

**Bahuyuddha** · Posted On: 6/06/2011 4:02am

Results have been posted here. I don't see Matt's name, so it looks like he's not a world champion yet. Did anyone see him there? In one of his videos he said that he would be posting footage form the tournament, but I don't see anything on his YouTube channel yet. Anyone have video?

**superangryfish** · Posted On: 6/06/2011 4:21am

According to the UG and SherDog he did show but was DQ'd for reasons unknown.

http://www.sherdog.net/forums/f12/ma...9/index35.html

Look for the post from "Eyes" who was supposed to be his opponent.

**Uncle Skippy** · Posted On: 6/06/2011 12:24pm

Posted by RAWilliams on Sherdog:

Originally Posted by RAWilliams

(...)

I happened to be about five feet away when he was DQ'ed since I was waiting to say hi to my teammate who was going through gi check at the time. So I overheard the entire conversation. Basically he was called from the bullpen and told he wasn't allowed to compete in this novice tournament because the IBJJF had evidence (as in screen shots, printouts, etc.) of him holding a rank "other than white belt". He objected but got nowhere and was sent away. The only thing that could have made it better would have been if the DQ voice guy had been around to announce the "deeee-cuuuuue" over the loudspeaker, because he does it so satisfyingly.

Like a good kneebar where you don't start feeling the pain or understanding the seriousness of the injury until later, the long term implications of the decision weren't obvious right away. But once we started thinking about it we realized just how thoroughly Barvo had been dealt with.

You see, now there's a precedent: because he's produced so much evidence of his black belt status (forged by him), he can't compete in a Federation tournament below black belt. Yet in order for him to compete as a black belt, he needs a Federation ID, and to get that he needs to be affiliated with a legitimate academy and professor who will vouch for him. So unless Hades freezes over and someone starts training him, and then trains him all the way up to the black belt level, he *cannot* compete at a Federation tournament. This may have no impact on any other kind of tournament or organization. But his Federation career is decisively over. It's a catch-22 that he himself created: he needs a black belt to compete, and he can't get a black belt without help from the same community he's abused. His lies have caught up with him, and he is truly hoist on his own petard. Effectively his own momentum was used against him in perverse administrative and logical jujitsu.

(...)