The jiu-jitsu world continues to raise skepticism about Derek Moneyberg — real name Dale Buskowski — and his recent accomplishments in grappling.
This past July, the 46-year-old content creator was awarded his jiu-jitsu black belt from MMA veteran Jake Shields after only three years and seven months of training. While Shields is a respected grappler with legitimate credentials, including a black belt of his own, Buskowski’s accomplishment drew significant controversy. The majority of top combat sports athletes work double or triple that length of time to achieve the rank of jiu-jitsu black belt, if not decades, while also competing extensively in grappling tournaments and/or professional fights — neither of which Buskowski has done in any capacity.
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By comparison, Buskowski’s speed to reach black belt status rivals arguably the most famous case in which a fighter has done similarly; in 2000, B.J. Penn earned his black belt after roughly three years of training. Penn went on to become a two-division UFC champion and UFC Hall of Famer.
In a Monday in-studio interview on “The Ariel Helwani Show” that at times turned contentious, Buskowski cited Penn as his inspiration and defended his controversial black belt.
“I’m like alright, ‘If I ever do this, I have to do it the way [Penn] did.’ Have private instruction with black belts, with high-level instructors from the beginning,” Buskowski said. “Regarding the amount of years, yeah, maybe that’s a shorter amount of years [than most people who get promoted to a jiu-jitsu black belt]. Regarding the amount of time, I spent more time in the gym than most of these people.
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“The controversies online people focus on, ‘Three and a half years! Three and a half years!’ — no, dude, I did the same amount of training they did in less years, and I did it with their icons and idols, and I think there’s a jealousy component to that. You may or may not believe it. … I never tried to be a competitor. I had no interest in that. You’re questioning it and that’s OK. I don’t really mind if you question it.”
Buskowski insisted that his financial connections to Shields and the other fighters he pays to appear on his podcast and train him in private sessions have nothing to do with his seemingly unprecedented progress in jiu-jitsu. To classify it as such, he said, would be “unfair for numerous reasons.”
“Have you trained with some of these guys?” Buskowski asked. “I’m mostly a businessman. Jake has come to me — we started in November 2021, it comes every four weeks, plus we’ve trained in other places together. He’s come to me 50 times. He’s never had an excuse. If he had an injury, he shows up. If I have an injury, I show up. We work around it. He’s been a great person. He’s taught me a lot.”
Ultimately, Buskowski could likely silence his various critics within the grappling world the moment he competed in a public jiu-jitsu match or competition of any kind, but he doesn’t intend to.
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“I don’t give a s***,” he said. “I’m 46 years old. I’m not a pro fighter. I never had a dream of being a pro fighter.”
Although Buskowski has never competed, he has shared short clips of his training online, many of which have been met by ridicule. Mikey Musumeci, the reigning UFC BJJ bantamweight champion and one of the current faces of professional grappling, recently told Uncrowned that Buskowski “definitely works hard, but I would never give someone a black belt in that time.” Musumeci told Uncrowned that Buskowski paid him to train together three times in the past and further explained in an August interview with MMA legend Demetrious Johnson: “I’ve seen the videos that you guys have seen as well. He definitely does not look like a black belt when he’s physically doing those positions.”
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Another point of speculation among Buskowski’s critics with the grappling world has been his tendency to train in socks — something explicitly never seen in jiu-jitsu gyms for grip and hygiene reasons.
Buskowski said Monday that because he trains privately at home, it’s simply a matter of comfort.
“A typical jiu-jitsu practitioner is in a sweaty room with — I’ve been to some of these professional gyms where it’s 80 degrees in the room and there’s puddles of sweat,” Buskowski said. “You know what this looks like, you know what this smells like. I’m in a room with one or two people with me and it’s air-conditioned to my liking, and I’ve got 15 rooms in that property that have marble floors. So if you want a funny joke that happens to be true, is my toes get cold on all those marble floors. So I happen to wear socks around the property, and then we go over to the training room and then we go train, and I have my socks on. Who cares?”
Buskowski’s critics have begun extending beyond the typical online chatter. In September, former UFC middleweight champion Sean Strickland confronted him in a hotel, accusing Buskowski of being a scam artist, among other insults.
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Buskowski said Monday that he’s pursuing legal action against Strickland after previously claiming the fighter wouldn’t be able to submit him within five minutes.
“We have a legal dispute to clear up first,” Buskowski said of the Strickland situation. “If he’s open-minded about [having a grappling match afterward], I’d be open-minded about it. I’m not going to discuss anything, but he has a pending legal case. I’m suing him. I’ll let my attorneys deal with that, but it looks like I’m going to have to sue him, yes. He’s said a lot of very nasty things that are false, that hurt my reputation and hurt my brand, and I don’t like that.
“I asked him to his face before this if he’d like to do the match, and then he continued to say more false things, repeat lies and create new lies. I wish it wasn’t that way. I respect him. I think he’s a very talented fighter, and I have very good relationships with many other people around him. So I don’t know why he made that decision, but that’s the decision he’s made.”
