Martial arts are about honor, which makes lying about one’s education, prowess, or accomplishments an unforgivable sin. Real martial artists detest this kind of behavior, and actively condemn it. So what motivates anyone to attempt it? Especially in our Google-able times?
With this in mind, we took a look back at some of the most famous embellishers, frauds, and nutjobs in martial arts history. It didn’t give us many answers, but it at least offered us plenty of stories of no-touch knockouts, mail order black belts, fake Russian boxing matches, and melting babies.
Arguably the second most notorious BJJ fraud of all time, David Lang has made the following claims over the years: he is a Brazilian American who moved to the U.S. at 19 as a BJJ brown belt, he served two tours in Afghanistan with the 101st Infantry Division, and he received his black belt under BJJ and vale tudo legend Wallid Ismail.
Lang was first exposed in 2010 when a thread on Underground started to dig into his past and discovered that Lang had no connections to Brazil, had grown up as a homeschooled Christian in the U.S., and had never served in the military. Wallid Ismail had never even heard of him, and promptly issued a video statement on the issue.
Instead of defending himself, admitting guilt and/or disappearing, Lang doubled down and began a letter-writing campaign to clear his name that somehow resulted in him, among other things, becoming prison pen pals with BJJ black belt Hermes Franca, and swindling well-respected black belt Carlos David Oliveira. And he’s still at it.
