EBI 10 competitor and Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt Marcelo Cohen has some words for blue belts who compete in the expert divisions – don’t get salty if you get beaten by a black belt in 30 seconds.
Cohen competed in a NAGA competition last Saturday in Jacksonville, Florida, and he noticed some of the blue belts getting “butt hurt” when they faced the black belts.
“… blue belts winning expert levels, and they get butt hurt when they face a legit black belt that beat them in 30 seconds!” Cohen told the Jiu-Jitsu Times in an exclusive interview. “That’s what you should expect when you’re entering at this level. Don’t be surprised homies! NAGA for me, it’s just a way to keep myself in shape. For them, it’s the World Series.”
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Posted by Marcelo Cohen on Saturday, June 10, 2017
The black belt said later:
Blue belts show up to these tournaments feeling entitled to something. In reality, a blue belt is no expert. Sometimes, a legit black belt shows up and beats them in 30 seconds, showing them the meaning of expert. I’m a black belt just doing my job, trying to get another belt. You can’t get angry at me for showing up to a tournament in a division that’s meant for me.
Cohen, however, took no pride in beating this blue belts, as he posted on Facebook:
Update: Marcelo Cohen later clarified his stance:
Marcelo Cohen: Many of you are completely misunderstanding the point. I’m not disrespecting anyone. I have a lot of respect for my opponent at this tournament. I encourage everyone to test themselves. I myself have gone into weight classes 50 lbs over or more because I don’t have a match at my weight. The point is that I have been catching a lot of heat for this match. Some of my opponents teammates along with others are disrespecting me for fighting a blue belt. I don’t go around looking for blue belts to beat up on. I sign up for tournaments in my division if blue belts want to test themselves, great. But the disrespect of a higher belt from my opponents teammate in this case is unnecessary.
What do you think of blue belts competing at the NAGA expert levels? Should a blue belt really be competing against a high level black belt like Marcelo Cohen?
Check out the video from one of Marcelo’s matches below:
https://www.facebook.com/marcelo.cohen1/videos/10212141590107781/
Chris had already won the intermediate division and per NAGA Rules was forced to compete st Expert so we had no choice making this article irrelevant.
Rules are rules, I foght a lower belt before and I gave everything I got, he got hurt and upset. Lower ranks should stick with their level as long is possible before jumping with higher ranks, you never know what they can do,like a dangerous takedown or neck crank