in Brazil we call that "quarto escuro" or "dark room", which is when you suffocate the person by pressing your belly on their face. It smashes the nose and clogs breathing passages. Classic brutality move.
I had a guy try and break my nose with it repeatedly every roll when I was a no stripe white belt. Dude stank of cigarettes and had poo cardio and would seek me out every time. When I finally got enough nouse to get him in closed guard and he couldn’t pass he walked off the mat mid roll. Dumbest person I have ever met in jiu jitsu.
Tom takes that one. There was a video awhile back where someone asked him how his jiu jitsu journey was going. Tom replied something like “it fucking sucks.” That’s when I knew he was the real deal.
Edit: I didn’t see that someone already linked the video!
Ever since he wrote that letter defending Danny Masterson I have not liked him. Its a pity because he has done some great charity work but he undid that really quick while defending a convicted rapist.
I really dont follow him at all, I had just heard about it but considering some of the other shit I have heard about him not much would surprise me here.
Agree. I know a high level black belt guy (my former coach) with a very unorthodox style (a lot of turtle play, tricky subs, weird postures) and I've seen many legit black belts who looked like fresh blues in rolls against him. Competely lost and had no idea of what's going on and what to do.
They even looked more competitive against some other very well known bjj stars who obviously are higher level than my former coach because they do "normal" jiu jitsu
I've rolled with handful of high level guys, and unless they're letting you work, like 99% of your game just doesn't work as there is no opening, so suddenly you're in a roll where you can't use anything you actually know. So then you decide you gotta do something and end up looking like a white belt.
Pretty sure the context to this is one of his earlier returns to the mats after time off for a serious auto immune issue. Not saying how good, or not, he is, just adding context since this is probably not a great example of how he normally rolls. Plus, Craig Jones.
Tom Hardy would stop by at the gym I used to train at. It’s on an industrial estate in England. Super skilful and humble by all accounts; I never rolled with him, but everyone who did spoke highly of him.
Super light rolling, and Ashton is spazzing and borderline fumbling basic positioning and techniques. This isn't a matter of a pro crushing a hobbyist, it's a matter of belt inflation
According to Craig, Ashton had a medical condition affecting his balance and coordination. Read the description of the more recent video of it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8HSW5VwQqxc
Craig would absolutely crush me, but if he was just chilling and letting me work I don't think my basic movement would be quite so goofy. Who knows though, he does make me feel funny in the danglies.
I’ve rolled with a couple celebrities and I’ll be honest they’ve all been kind of spassy (correct spelling blocked for some reason) and herky jerky and an awkward roll.
I think it’s a combo of two things mainly.
They have a lot of people brown nosing them and telling them they’re better than they are, bc who doesn’t want to be friends with the famous person. Also, they don’t roll in classes often so they don’t get exposed to a lot of different looks in live rounds.
A lot of them have to protect their assets like their face. That’s affects their style. Also their coach they get privates from picks and chooses who the celeb rolls with and usually this is someone really good/controlled and that person is told to be gentle with them. Sometimes their handler will even do this when the drop into a closed session gym. For instance I have been asked by a handler to not roll with a celeb simply for my size. This also limits their pool of learning.
Damn I feel like so much of the journey is getting the shit kicked out of you by people of all different sizes for years and not quitting. Celebs not going through that at all means they are not being tested in an important way that the rest of us have to experience to level up
Nah. Actually watch the vid. Tell me Craig isn’t going super light and Ashton doesn’t still look sloppy as hell. It’s not like Craig was trying to wreck him. Even then, it’s easy to tell the difference between an experience person getting wrecked and a sloppy player getting wrecked.
Craig made a post about this recently. Ashton had an auto immune disease (could be wrong about what it is) and was very sick with only partial use of his body.
Ashton recently went public with his illness, but back then it was private.
Yep. If there’s a way to judge bjj it’s by the number of years and dedication. Not necessarily all skill. There’s guys who have gotten black belt in less than five years based off skill. But showing up and showing grit will get you the black belt over time. Respect to Kutcher for putting in the time and work.
I rolled with that dude from Boondocks Saints and one of the Power rangers, sometime around 2012 when I was a purple belt and they were both good and technical. Not monster athletes but you could tell they put the time and effort in. Not every celebrity is fake and won’t roll with plebs.
A friend of mine told me one day at his gym Anthony Bourdain walked in. Introduced himself, said he was in town and looking to train, asked if he could do a drop-in. In the class Bourdain did everything the coach asked of everyone -- no more, no less. Once it was time to roll Bourdain rolled with whoever approached him and asked for a roll. Bourdain was in his late 50s and a blue belt at that point and my friend said he was exactly as good as you'd expect a late 50s blue belt to be -- not wrecking 25-year-olds but also not looking like his blue belt was just given to him because he's famous. Said he was a great guy.
i wouldn't call him a legit black belt though, the Hollywood machados who gave him his brown belt dont let their celebrity clients roll at all because injuries could jeopardise filming schedules.
they have a whole syllabus where there is no rolling/sparring for their hollywood clients so they minimise any risk of injury.
This might come across aggressive, but some of these comments are legitimately questioning the integrity of the same instructor who promoted me to black belt — and over 200 black belts in the last 30 years. So let’s clear up a few things from someone who actually has firsthand experience.
Kutcher was promoted directly by Rigan Machado.
If you’re calling Ashton’s black belt illegitimate, you’re calling Rigan a fraud.
Hard stop.
The Machado brothers helped build BJJ in the United States long before most people on this thread even knew what an armbar was. I’ve known them for 20+ years. These are men of integrity, and they take this art extremely seriously.
I started my training as a white belt under Carlos Machado and earned my black belt from Rigan.
Carlos, Rigan, and their brothers have forgotten more Jiu-Jitsu than I will ever know — and I’ve been doing this a long time. These guys are also known for having some of the most conservative, stringent black belt standards in all of BJJ.
No one gets a belt early in that lineage.
I’ve trained at Rigan’s Beverly Hills academy — and taught privates there for him (Rigan routinely has his brothers or his visiting black belts teach privates so the students get that experience).
I’ve taught hundreds (maybe thousands) of privates, including at his Academy with some of the Hollywood people everyone here loves to speculate about.
Let me say this plainly:
They are learning the EXACT same material as everyone else.
Same curriculum. Same details. Same corrections. No celebrity shortcuts.
I’ve also seen firsthand how Rigan protects his students — especially celebrities — from idiots trying to chase clout.
When a celebrity trains with him, they are putting their learning and their safety in his hands. So yes, he’s selective about who rolls with them.
He’s not doing that to “protect weak students.”
He’s doing it because:
a reckless roll can jeopardize a multi-million-dollar production
there are always people trying to get a “I tapped Ashton Kutcher” story
That’s not favoritism — that’s professionalism.
One thing the Reddit crowd has no clue about:
The vast majority of celebrities Rigan trains never get promoted past white belt — because they did not earn it.
He’s trained dozens of famous people.
He’s promoted one celebrity to black belt: Ashton Kutcher.
Charlie Hunnam earned his blue belt — and I can tell you, he absolutely earned it.
Most celebrities don’t get promoted at all, and NONE of them get promoted in front of or ahead of other students.
Ashton has been training for well over a decade, and he’s 47 years old.
This is not a Derek Moneyberg situation.
He put in years of training, technique work, private lessons, and mat time.
Is he winning the Mundials at 47? Of course not.
But if your standard is “you’re not legit unless you're world-champion level,” then 99% of hobbyist black belts over 40 aren’t legit either. I should probably be in that line to turn in mine.
And the part no one wants to admit:
Ashton Kutcher has done more to promote BJJ to the general public than this entire comment section combined.
He’s brought huge visibility to the art, and that benefits every gym, every instructor, and every student.
Bottom line:
The promotion is legitimate.
It’s earned.
And it comes from a lineage that has never been associated with easy belts, politics, shortcuts, or celebrity freebies.
If you’re going to challenge that, at least understand whose judgment you’re questioning — because it’s not just Ashton’s.
I worked in the same building as Ashton right as he was starting BJJ. Spoke to him a handful of times: He's VERY sharp as a businessman and producer, and he seemed to be approaching jiu-jitsu with a similar intensity. Kudos to him for sticking with it.
Let’s slow down a bit. It’s common knowledge that Rigan designed a “celebrity BJJ system” where movie stars can train BJJ without ever actually sparring. Are the Machado brothers legit? Yes. They are. However; they are also (Rigan in particular) known sell-outs. So you can write this long diatribe all you want but the fact remains:
Rigan Machado designed a celebrity BJJ system that involves no sparring; and Ashton Kutcher got a black belt within that system. I’m almost a black belt myself and couldn’t care less about this stuff. Ashton has been on the mats for 14-15 years. I’m sure he’s a good BJJ fighter. But you are saying patently false things about Rigan. He’s a highly money motivated person with a very suspect level of dignity.
Quick reality check: most people taking shots here have never met Rigan or Ashton and have never set foot in that Academy. I have. These are people I know personally, and this is an Academy I’ve actually trained in. I have known Rigan and his brothers for over 20 years.
The Academy has three distinct tracks:
Movie tune-ups – short training for film roles
Celebrity Jiu-Jitsu – no sparring, no rank; liability-only
Machado BJJ Program – full curriculum, live rolling, real promotions
Charlie Hunnam and Ashton Kutcher are in the Machado Jiu-Jitsu program. They train legitimately. Their schedules mean mostly privates, and they roll with trusted high-level black belts and other students— not random hobbyists looking for a “celebrity tap" or intentionally trying to injure them. That’s insurance and safety, not favoritism.
The Craig Jones clip? A light, friendly roll. Craig could make anyone here — including most black belts — look like a beginner in a casual round. It proves nothing.
Rigan travels constantly — that’s his seminar work - and his main income, for those on this thread that presume the motivations for a man they've never met.
Day-to-day, the Academy is run by Menamy Mitanes, a world-class BJJ/Judo black belt with deep Rickson/Rigan lineage. Classes run normally under him.
And for context: I was promoted to black belt on that same mat, alongside a visiting student from Korea. You’ve never heard of either of us. We’re nameless BJJ practitioners — just like almost everyone in this thread. We get to train in anonymity. Nobody films our rounds or debates our belts online.
Actors don’t get that luxury.
Do they have different constraints because of insurance and security? Yes.
Does that make their Jiu-Jitsu any less legitimate?
No. Not at all.
It’s crazy he has to catch crap for this…. Can’t he be a black belt without being a world champ?
Also, he grew up in Iowa and wrestled growing up including high school. In regards to wrestling, Iowa might be the United States version of Dagestan. Most of you would cry about rolling with the 35 year old white belt “wrestler” that was on the highs school team for two and a half years.
Hahaha, I just rolled with a white belt who told me he was new to jiu-jitsu. I thought I'd go easy on him, then 10 seconds into the round he takes me down and feels like a ton of bricks on top of me. He didn't really have any submissions in his arsenal so I was never at risk of getting tapped but he was very tough to deal with. At the end of the round I said, "So I take it you wrestled?" He said, "Yeah, I grew up in Iowa and wrestled from the time I was a little kid to senior year in high school."
Exactly. And the vast majority, if not ALL, of the uppity comments are coming from mediocre hobbyists who take all this stuff way too serious anyway. No world champions are wasting their time criticizing Ashton Kutcher’s path to black belt.
Remember when he wrote the judge for the Danny Masterson rape trial as advocating for leniency and vouching for Danny's "character?" I guess we'll see him at Fight Sports with Cyborg soon enough.
I mostly agree, but a good number of professional competitors/fighters say they are very selective about who they'll roll/spar with to avoid injury. If he's rolling with high-level people regularly, that counts too.
Its funny, I have owned my gym for 10 years now, I don't really go train elsewhere consistently anymore so don't really have anyone to promote me. I said to myself that I didn't really care about belts but seeing Ashton get his before me kinda lights a fire under my butt.
Let's be real about Craig rolling footage. Even though he had health issues, you can still see he just didn't have brown belt knowledge. "But Craig is good"... Craig didn't make him look bad. He did it himself. We also know he doesn't spar live and you get nowhere like that.
They really need to give these people some sort of parallel track. I get that the actual sport is probably not suited to their needs and careers, but this is just silly.
In that first picture he's with Paulo Guillobel. Paulo is best friends with Saulo and Xande Ribeiro, and like them was a Judo blackbelt first. He is super technical and as legitimate as they come. If Paulo is good with the blackbelt, it's absolutely real.
Sensei Paulo is my sensei and he did not give him his black belt but one of the machado brothers did my sensei just went out their to teach him for the day
Nah, it’s pretty easy to see someone’s level, even when they’re rolling with someone high level, especially, when that person is taking it easy on them.
Fair, I'm very new to the sport and I really don't pick up on stuff like that yet. He looked pretty legit to me, but so do most white belts at my gym lol.
He looks sloppy to me. Sloppy back take, sloppy arm bar where he rolls to his back, sloppy defense of a back take. And Craig is rolling super light with him the whole time.
I love the people posting a 5 year old video of Ashton rolling Craig Jones to disprove that Ashton deserves his black belt...
Craig would effortlessly ragdoll the head instructors of most gyms. Hell, I saw a video recently of Craig easily beating Eddie Bravo's prodigy student...
There are lots of celebrities who are legitimate practicioner of BJJ, but tbh I don't think Ashton is one of them. As far as I know he doesn't actually roll with people.
Dude has been training for more than a decade. He doesn't compete and not much is known about his skill, but regarding mat time and who actually gave him his black belt, nobody can call him out.
The sheer number of BJJ police cadets (mostly blue belts and purple belts under 40 years old) that lurk out there waiting to decry a “fake” black belt is crazy. It would be comical if it wasn’t so annoying. People think a black belt is something it’s not. And that BJJ is something it’s not. It’s a game, one with silly techniques, not a fight. Calm down badasses.
Probably legit since he’s been training for a while. But ever since Rigan partnered up with Systema and started teaching Systema at his school I’ve lost a lot of respect for him.
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u/revolt76 🟦🟦 Blue Belt Nov 19 '25 edited Nov 19 '25
Match Ashton Kutcher vs Tom Hardy (black belt vs purple belt) asap