Rigan Machado knowingly promotes convicted rapist to BJJ black belt

[Dr. Gonzo]

When a virus or bacteria or some other lifeform that causes pain,immense pain, sickness for the others and that serves no purpose is present it should be eradicated.
I feel the same way about the bubonic plague or ebola as I do about rapists. I don't hate them. I don't want revenge. They should just be wipe clean from this earth.
Date rapers are especially broken. They are cowardly weasels who use words,lies and deny what they are until the victim is incapacitated. Their words mean nothing. Their words are what allowed them to be close to their victims in the first place. Their brain programing has a defect.It needs to be deleted.
If they are sorry? Good for them. Their brain programing has a defect.It needs to be deleted just the same.

We don't need people in coaching roles that are rapists.

We have enough problems already without that problem, and the students deserve better.

[Dr. Gonzo]

I reached out to a friend of mine who is a Machado black belt,

to let them know that Paul Saucido was spreading this vile rumor at Rigan Machado's expense.

And I sent an email to Rigan's academy to let them know.

[Devil]

Rigan Machado seems to me to have questionable integrity, even before I heard about this, with his celebrity jiu jitsu and his public support of Systema bullshido. He seems like a people pleaser.

[Dr. Gonzo]

Rigan Machado seems to me to have questionable integrity, even before I heard about this, with his celebrity jiu jitsu and his public support of Systema bullshido. He seems like a people pleaser.

Many people on this board have noted that when you take "soft" arts without an expert background in "hard" (and live) arts,
that knowledge of the "soft" art may not enable the practitioner to apply the techniques of the soft art
against somebody really trying to smash or hurt them.
Conversely, you take an Olympic wrestler or Judoka, and you cross train them in tai chi, Aikido, Krav Maga, or Systema,
and they may be able to draw insights, and perform application that is very damaging to their opponent,
because they did not forget their background in their core art,
and can integrate in distinctions from other arts and other approaches with the full weight of their prior practical, live combat art experience to do so.
I don't know much about "soft" arts.
I have focused on Wrestling, Judo, G/BJJ, and Boxing.
However, Rigan has had people trying to smash him live, including some of the toughest people, his whole life.
If he says he learned something from somebody, it is because he has an open mind,
and given his expert's expert level in G/BJJ, he will see things that even new black belts in BJJ (or mid level Black belts in BJJ like myself) may not see.
Rigan has just been at it longer, been teaching it longer, and has journeyed from young teenager through advancing middle aged stages of human life
himself as an expert practitioner of G/BJJ.
That is a lot of mat time, and practical experience studying martial arts, and their application and teaching.
Not everything is a sell out;
Sometimes people have an open mind, and have a lot of experience and context.
If you are Rigan and have been practicing Jiu-Jitsu for around 40 years,
sometimes the way to learn new things is to study new things with an open mind.
I don't presume to speak for Rigan, because I do not have his experience,
and I have not spoken to him.
But that is my guess.

[Devil]

Many people on this board have noted that when you take "soft" arts without an expert background in "hard" (and live) arts,
that knowledge of the "soft" art may not enable the practitioner to apply the techniques of the soft art
against somebody really trying to smash or hurt them.
Conversely, you take an Olympic wrestler or Judoka, and you cross train them in tai chi, Aikido, Krav Maga, or Systema,
and they may be able to draw insights, and perform application that is very damaging to their opponent,
because they did not forget their background in their core art,
and can integrate in distinctions from other arts and other approaches with the full weight of the practical, live experience to do so.
I don't know much about "soft" arts.
I have focused on Wrestling, Judo, G/BJJ, and Boxing.
However, Rigan has had people trying to smash him live, including some of the toughest people, his whole life.
If he says he learned something from somebody, it is because he has an open mind,
and given his expert's expert level in G/BJJ, he will see things that even new black belts in BJJ (or mid level Black belts in BJJ like myself) may not see.
He has just been at it longer, been teaching it longer, and has journey from young teenager through advancing middle aged stages of human life
as an expert practitioner of G/BJJ.
Not everything is a sell out;
Sometimes people have an open mind, and have a lot of experience and context.

Having vast jiu jitsu experience doesn't magically make you a good or honorable person. Also, some people are good at things but dumb as shit. (See George Foreman).

I don't know which is the case with Machado but something seems amiss to me. Some of the stuff he says and does is bullshit. I don't care what belt he wears.

[It is Fake]

Just want to make a couple of clarifications, Judo and BJJ would completely and utterly fall under the title "soft" arts. Taking your vast experience and saying this style now works is noted by a VERY small subsection of Bullshido. To be clear, what you just described is borrowing and shouldn't be held up as look this entire art really works. You are conflating two discussion into one.

[Dr. Gonzo]

Just want to make a couple of clarifications, Judo and BJJ would completely and utterly fall under the title "soft" arts. Taking your vast experience and saying this style now works is noted by a VERY small subsection of Bullshido. To be clear, what you just described is borrowing and shouldn't be held up as look this entire art really works. You are conflating two discussion into one.

When I learned Jiu-Jitsu, and certainly when Rigan learned Jiu-Jitsu, the Jiu-Jitsu was presented to deal with people hitting us, and we trained as often with slaps and hits while rolling as without, as was the custom for many Jiu-Jitsu schools at that time.

Second, regarding Judo, there are gentle Judo schools, usually ran by older farts who have gotten away from strictly looking at Judo as a competitive sport,

And then there are the Judokas and Judo schools who will act like every Randori is a tournament and will hit you with the planet as hard as they can and as frequently as they can, and may even follow it up with a makikomi for good measure just to make sure that there is no doubt.

In those schools, Judo like Wrestling, are both fairly hard arts, and train with an intensity such that every encounter hurts.

I would not pay too much mind to the "Gentle / Yielding" translations of Ju in those cases.

Further, modern no gi submission grappling, and modern gi submission grappling Jiu-Jitsu is not the only kind of practice there ever was, or is now.

Some Jiu-Jitsu schools are still very Vale Tudo-ish or MMA-ish, and some teach techniques that are not IBJJF legal, and are designed to hurt the opponent every way possible.

And I would also have to re-read Rigan Machado's "endorsement of Systema".

Did he say something nice about the instructor?

Or the art?

And even if he did say something nice about Systema as an art,

If Rigan Machado said all Jiu-Jitsu fighters could benefit from cross training in Ballet,

even if I did not personally agree with it, when it comes to Jiu-Jitsu,

Rigan knows more than me, and knows more than most of the new generation of BJJ black belts as well.

I am not saying that people on this board have to agree with Rigan, or they have to care what color his belt is.

But, if 20 years from now people starting jawing this or that about Demian Maia,

especially if they did not get to see him when he was still near his prime,

and especially if he has still been training, coaching, and learning all this time,

then I and many of the people on this board would be like,

look, this guy is a bad ass, bad ass flows through his veins,

and regardless of what he says that you do not agree with,

this guy has more layers of his experience in Jiu-Jitsu than an onion has layers.

And that is how it is with Rigan Machado.

[Dr. Gonzo]

I went and watched the video that some people on this board are complaining about where Rigan Machado endorsed the Systema instructor.

So, if I understand this right,

Rigan said he brought a Systema instructor to a heavy weight grappling seminar with UFC level competitors,

at the Systema guy's request and a recommendation from a mutual friend.

Rigan said that he was impressed by the Systema guy's ability to survive that training,

was impressed with the guy's breathing and calm,

and Rigan said that he recommends to 70% of his students to consider cross training

with that guy because he thinks there are things that they can learn from him.

And this is what you guys have your underwear knotted over?

In the early nineties they sent us all to cross train in either yoga or animal gymnastica or both,

and the best Jiu-Jitsu fighters, the really top level guys, were all doing this special breathing training

with a "breathing master" that Rickson liked.

You guys miss the point.

Jiu-Jitsu, at the highest levels, and especially the Brazilians,

have always been fascinated by coaches that can teach the athletes to breathe better, move better, think better, especially when they come from outside Jiu-Jitsu,

if for no other reason, than they know, that they themselves (the Jiu-Jitsu coaches) can teach the Jiu-Jitsu approach to those things very well.

The hate some people have for Systema on this board I think blinds people to the larger context I think to what Rigan was and was not saying in that video.

I have never trained in Systema. That is not an art I personally know or promote.

But, I cross trained in yoga in the early nineties like many Jiu-Jitsu competitors did.

Yoga has never been "my thing".

But, you try different things to widen your perspective in addition to all the drilling in your actual sport.

[Michael Tzadok]

First let's look at what Rigan actually said:

Now let's be clear. Rigan Machado is a professional martial artist(i.e. he has no day job, is income is based entirely on what he makes from MA). Martin Wheeler teaches out of Rigan Machado's club, and while I do not have details on exactly how those finances work, what is clear is that Rigan Machado benefits financially from Martin Wheeler's presence and success. So when Rigan is promoting Martin Wheeler and making unverifiable claims about his ability to hang with MMA heavy weights in fights because of his superior Systema(I try not to laugh as I write that, but Rigan said it), people are going to call BS.

To be clear, Systema is crap. If you want a full detailed position as to why Systema is crap I will gladly fill you in. All the best things about Systema comes directly from Combat Sambo, the rest is just push ups, sit ups, and silly breathing exercises derived from Orthodox Christian meditative practices, which in their original sources claim to be dangerous to one's health if not practiced properly and under proper instruction.

I get that you feel some sort of need to defend Rigan Machado, as you have done so in literally every post concerning him. However, the sheer weight of oddities starts to mount up pretty high. There is the Junior Black belt issue, which he supports. There is the celebrity Jiu Jitsu where there is no rolling or pressure testing(and yet he claims his purple belt who has never rolled can defeat brown belt and UFC Champ Conor McGregor), you have him supporting Systema, and now the very real possibility that he promoted a rapist to black belt. It's rare that you have so much smoke without there being fire.

[BackFistMonkey]

First let's look at what Rigan actually said:

Now let's be clear. Rigan Machado is a professional martial artist(i.e. he has no day job, is income is based entirely on what he makes from MA). Martin Wheeler teaches out of Rigan Machado's club, and while I do not have details on exactly how those finances work, what is clear is that Rigan Machado benefits financially from Martin Wheeler's presence and success. So when Rigan is promoting Martin Wheeler and making unverifiable claims about his ability to hang with MMA heavy weights in fights because of his superior Systema(I try not to laugh as I write that, but Rigan said it), people are going to call BS.

To be clear, Systema is crap. If you want a full detailed position as to why Systema is crap I will gladly fill you in. All the best things about Systema comes directly from Combat Sambo, the rest is just push ups, sit ups, and silly breathing exercises derived from Orthodox Christian meditative practices, which in their original sources claim to be dangerous to one's health if not practiced properly and under proper instruction.

I get that you feel some sort of need to defend Rigan Machado, as you have done so in literally every post concerning him. However, the sheer weight of oddities starts to mount up pretty high. There is the Junior Black belt issue, which he supports. There is the celebrity Jiu Jitsu where there is no rolling or pressure testing(and yet he claims his purple belt who has never rolled can defeat brown belt and UFC Champ Conor McGregor), you have him supporting Systema, and now the very real possibility that he promoted a rapist to black belt. It's rare that you have so much smoke without there being fire.

When someone I respect or have been told to respect because of their accomplishments or personal struggle tries to sell me System or Nimpo or yellow bamboo or religion or any other wooo or mysticism or occult or yoga or alternative medicine or alternative facts or alternative rapists or alt right politics for that matter, it always comes back to money. Money money money.

Giving Systema the benefit of the doubt when money is on the table is just silly. Does this one fellow happen to have the R34l Syst3m4? Is his breathing just so advanced that it is a game changer? I find that hard to believe. Maybe I am just hard headed or ignorant and this Martin Wheeler does have special abilities to train and teach breathing better than anyone else... and you can only get it from Rigan Machado's school. Or maybe it is yet another partnership set up to fleece students with more money than sense and skepticism and the same BS as other Systema classes.

Maybe I just don't have enough respect. Maybe I don't have blind loyalty. Maybe I am just paranoid. Maybe Rigan Machado is promoting bullshit with the distance learning, Systema, compliant training, and claims of his untested celebrity students prowess and skill.

[PDA]

This is the back story?

https://web.archive.org/web/20150509...ckyard-is.html

[Dr. Gonzo]

First let's look at what Rigan actually said:
I get that you feel some sort of need to defend Rigan Machado, as you have done so in literally every post concerning him.

It is not so much that I am loyal to Rigan, or really feel the need to defend him for his sake.

He certainly does not need any defense from the likes of us, chatting on an online forum, which is an activity that is a step away from living in Mom's basement.

But rather, it is that I believe that if I were to add up all of the grappling knowledge of all the people on Bullshido, Rigan would know more, and what he knows would be worth more.

Also, you will notice a mega-meta-pattern to my posts when it comes to real fighters in general.

There is a HUGE difference between people who fight for purses, and those that compete and train as enthusiast hobbyists.

The hobbyists do gain the ability to talk about fighting, but they really don't understand what it is like to be a fighter or a retired fighter.

So, when Jordan was on here and he would say some strange sound things, having been around fighters, what I am here to tell you is that fighters often do say strange sound things as they get older.

When fighters, real fighters, are part of your circle, you get pretty used to them saying some interesting things, and you really rather celebrate if their health is largely intact after years of paying the man with their bodies.

So, I know who is Rigan is, I know he knows more about martial arts than most people, including most BJJ black belts, and when I hear people on an online forum run their mouths about him, or if I heard people run their mouth about Demian Maia or Eric Paulson, then I often comment.

But, none of those guys need me to comment on their behalf because people on an online forum are passing their time, tapping away about unsubstantiated rumors.

Rigan Machado is one of the greatest there ever was in Jiu-Jitsu, particularly in his generation.

Bark and type all you want.

[PDA]

It is not so much that I am loyal to Rigan, or really feel the need to defend him for his sake.

He certainly does not need any defense from the likes of us, chatting on an online forum, which is an activity that is a step away from living in Mom's basement.

But rather, it is that I believe that if I were to add up all of the grappling knowledge of all the people on Bullshido, Rigan would know more, and what he knows would be worth more.

Also, you will notice a mega-meta-pattern to my posts when it comes to real fighters in general.

There is a HUGE difference between people who fight for purses, and those that compete and train as enthusiast hobbyists.

The hobbyists do gain the ability to talk about fighting, but they really don't understand what it is like to be a fighter or a retired fighter.

So, when Jordan was on here and he would say some strange sound things, having been around fighters, what I am here to tell you is that fighters often do say strange sound things as they get older.

When fighters, real fighters, are part of your circle, you get pretty used to them saying some interesting things, and you really rather celebrate if their health is largely intact after years of paying the man with their bodies.

So, I know who is Rigan is, I know he knows more about martial arts than most people, including most BJJ black belts, and when I hear people on an online forum run their mouths about him, or if I heard people run their mouth about Demian Maia or Eric Paulson, then I often comment.

But, none of those guys need me to comment on their behalf because people on an online forum are passing their time, tapping away about unsubstantiated rumors.

Rigan Machado is one of the greatest there ever was in Jiu-Jitsu, particularly in his generation.

Bark and type all you want.

What are you defending here?

His martial arts ability ? which is not in question
or
His support for rapists?
or
His bastardization of his own stamp of approval for profit?

[Dr. Gonzo]

When someone I respect or have been told to respect because of their accomplishments or personal struggle tries to sell me System or Nimpo or yellow bamboo or religion or any other wooo or mysticism or occult or yoga or alternative medicine or alternative facts or alternative rapists or alt right politics for that matter, it always comes back to money. Money money money.

Giving Systema the benefit of the doubt when money is on the table is just silly. Does this one fellow happen to have the R34l Syst3m4? Is his breathing just so advanced that it is a game changer? I find that hard to believe. Maybe I am just hard headed or ignorant and this Martin Wheeler does have special abilities to train and teach breathing better than anyone else... and you can only get it from Rigan Machado's school. Or maybe it is yet another partnership set up to fleece students with more money than sense and skepticism and the same BS as other Systema classes.

Maybe I just don't have enough respect. Maybe I don't have blind loyalty. Maybe I am just paranoid. Maybe Rigan Machado is promoting bullshit with the distance learning, Systema, compliant training, and claims of his untested celebrity students prowess and skill.

There is footage in this clip of Mr. Wheeler doing what look to me like Aikido style off balance exercises, footage of him flow rolling, andfootage of him doing some things that I assume are Systema, because they look a bit strange to me.

Now, for me to make an opinion on the worth of the exercises that he is presenting, I would have to go train with him, and see what he is talking and in what context.

I did not necessarily see him doing woo-woo or psychic knock outs or anything like that.

If you guys hate Systema, OK. I watched the clip, but I am still not familiar with Systema, because I have never trained with anybody who is a qualified Systema instructor, and I am a hands on kind of researcher.

For some reason Rigan thought it would be good cross training for his students to get some time with this guy, and what Rigan recommends his students cross train in does not negatively affect me.

I have a colleague who is older than me, and has good Judo tai sabaki. He also cross trains in Aikido,
and all manner of very soft arts and he also talks about the Hatsumi guy.
I send Judo people to take a class with him routinely because his tai sabaki is very practiced, especially compared to mine.
I am not sending them there because I am particularly a fan of Hatsumi or all of the other things the guy has in his head.
But, I do like my Judo students to get his perspective on Judo tai sabaki,
because I think he has practiced it north of 10,000 times, and it is very smooth,
and it seems to be positionally in alignment with the black and white footage of the old time Kodokan guys I see practicing.
So, because it is a different perspective than mine, and I think has some goodness to offer,
I encourage my Judo students to take some Judo classes from him to get his perspective on movement and practice, because it is much more old timey textbook Kodokan Judo than mine own Judo tends to be.
I also think the gentleman and his class is seriously lacking in his ground work practice (which he would probably admit), and we disagree on as many things as we agree on.
But, sometimes people have good things in specific areas to offer despite being not perfect or even sub-optimal in other areas.

So context and details in "endorsements" or evaluating endorsements other people make are key to understanding what is really being endorsed, why, and in what context.

[Dr. Gonzo]

What are you defending here?

His martial arts ability ? which is not in question
or
His support for rapists?
or
His bastardization of his own stamp of approval for profit?

Where is there any proof that Rigan Machado supports rapists?

The only proof I have seen is a post from Rigan Machado disassociating himself with Saucide after the rape incident.

And the claim that Rigan is bastardizing anything for profit is a base insult.

I remember when people were giving Rigan all kinds of crap about blessing Paulson's promotion of Josh Barnett to black belt in BJJ.

With or without a Gi, Barnett has things that he can teach at the BJJ black belt level in grappling.

And Barnett has proved himself in real top level competition.

Rigan said nice things about his student Ashton Kuscher. Big deal, so an instructor said a nice thing about his student.

Rigan said he designed a drill and flow roll program for celebrities who could not risk losing multi-million dollar paydays by getting injured and missing movie filmings.
So, if the choice those celebrities have to make is between not training or training without hard rolling, you would say it is better for them to not train?
And you really think those celebrities will never improve after years of drilling and flow rolling, and probably really rolling with Rigan and Rigan's black belts who have the skill to minimize accidental injury that a lower belt would not during a real roll...?

What is this, some kind of class warrior bullshit?

So Rigan's clients have money? What, are you jealous of that?

Put Rigan in a room with anybody, and I mean anybody, and he will be able to provide grappling coaching value.

Whether it is a UFC fighter, a celebrity actor, a disabled person, or a current World Champion BJJ black belt.

And that is what I pay the most attention to, to be honest.