Mikey Musumeci shared a controversial opinion about what he sees as a growing problem with BJJ’s belt system.

Joined by Robert Drysdale and Hector Vasquez, Musumeci argued that the value of a black belt has been diluted by promotions based primarily on time spent training rather than actual technical ability:

A lot of the times, a lot of black belts in Jiu-Jitsu right now just got their belt from just training for a long period of time.
It’s just about the length that they trained, right? It isn’t even about their skill level.

Musumeci referenced the controversy surrounding Derek Moneyberg and noted that his views on the topic have remained unchanged:

I got in trouble a while back. I don’t want to talk about it that much, but with Derek Moneyberg.

And again in my mind, there’s so many black belts that are just training for like a billion years and that they don’t even know any Jiu-Jitsu.
It’s really bad, you know.

According to Musumeci, this trend has fundamentally changed how he views the rank of black belt:

In my mind, when I think of a black belt in Jiu-Jitsu, I don’t think of it in that high regards. I think anyone could get a black belt.

A lot of these people that get these black belts after training a bunch of years, then they make a gym and they make like a cult with their gym.
And they kind of brainwash their students to like closing off from the world.

Additionally, while he acknowledged that elite coaches may occasionally limit cross-training for competitive reasons, he believes the motivation is often very different among less-skilled instructors:

If you’re a high-level black belt and you have students, it’s a lot different not having them cross train than if you’re like the mentality I said.

Like a black belt that is just from length of time and they don’t want their students exposed to anyone else because they’ll get exposed.

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