Urijah Faber has been training Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for close to 20 years and he holds a brown belt since 2011 but his instrutor refuses to promote him to black belt.
Fabio “Pateta” Prado is a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu black belt under Marcelo Clemente. He moved to the USA 16 years ago and established himself as one of the main grappling coaches in MMA. He is the BJJ coach of Urijah Faber and Joseph Benavidez at team Alpha Male in Sacramento.
A few years ago, Prado had told MMAfighting.com how he wouldn’t promote Faber to black belt unless he trained more in the gi. Faber is a brown belt (was promoted top purple in 2010, then brown in 2011) and has defeated numerous BJJ black belts in MMA.
“No I won’t promote him yet, no way. We need to adjust some details with the gi. He needs to train with the gi, and he hasn’t been doing that much lately because he fought a lot last year. But when he returns to train with the gi he’ll receive the black belt, he knows that. Some guys here in the USA that teach for four years and have a lot of black belts.
Urijah Faber getting his purple belt from Prado in 2010
Prado is critical of Checkmat’s Leandro Vieira, who recently promoted UFC light heavyweight Daniel Cormier directly from white to brown belt:
“Some Checkmat guys are giving belts too quickly. If you ask those guys, Cormier won’t know how to score a jiu-jitsu fight. How are you going to promote a guy this way? I think it’s a shame you promote a guy to black belt and he doesn’t even know the rules. I’m pissed off with that. I don’t know if the coaches just want to be seen. Here in the U.S., there are a lot of guys promoting students via internet. I can’t understand it. My student Joseph Benavidez is a white belt in jiu-jitsu, and he has defeated five black belts in jiu-jitsu: Wagnney Fabiano, Rani Yahya, Jeff Curran, Miguel Torres and Jussier Formiga,” he said. “But if you ask him what’s a lapel choke, he won’t know. And you ask me why he’s still a white belt. To receive the black belt, you need to know the positions, the origin of the fight, how to do the proper grip at the lapel, hip escaping. There’s no reason to promote Faber to black belt if he can’t teach you a loop choke. That’s the reality of jiu-jitsu. Whenever he has the opportunity he puts on the gi and trains. That’s important.”
