David Lang Still Running Gym & Claiming Black Belt Rank
A follower of ours named Alan Manley sent us links that showed David Lang is still around, teaching, and claiming to be a BJJ black belt. “Da Silva” is currently teaching at Tribe Martial Arts Academy in a small Alabama town called Phil Campbell, Alabama, which has a population of less than 1000 people.
If you don’t remember David Lang, he is one of the most well-known fake BJJ black belts who was exposed over 15 years ago. There have been numerous threads and articles detailing his scams.
Here are a few of them, for example:
- https://forums.sherdog.com/threads/is-fake-bjj-black-belt-david-lang-from-cortland-ny-back-again.2423973/
- https://forums.sherdog.com/threads/very-serious-concerns-about-giba-lotus-jiu-jitsu.3045081/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/bjj/comments/b0nzzi/seminar_in_the_binghamton_ny_area_saturday_sorry/
- https://www.reddit.com/r/bjj/comments/2jdf3g/notorious_bjj_fraud_black_belt_dave_lang_rolls_in/
- https://policegazette.us/index.php/2014/01/19/police-gazette-investigation-uncovers-notorious-jiu-jitsu-fraud-and-phony-war-hero-david-lang-operating-in-cortland-new-york/
“Da Silva” also claimed that BJJ legend Walid Ismail gave him his black belt, and he was the coach at Lotus Club. Walid Ismail and Giva Santana(The real coach of Lotus Club) made a video denouncing these claims made by David Lang.
What Is David Lang Claiming Now?
We were sent a few links about David Lang’s current gym and some new claims that he is making. He is the current head Jiu-jitsu coach at Tribe Martial Arts.
The school is registered on SMOOTHCOMP, and the person in charge is “David Mr. Bean” and Dominic Lang. Obviously, he didn’t use his real name, but pictures from the gym’s social media pages show it’s him.
From the SMOOTHCOMP gym page, Lang is now claiming to be a BJJ black belt under Vale Tudo legend José Pelé Landi Jones and that the gym is IBJJF registered.
We looked up if the gym was IBJJF registered, and it didn’t come up in the search: Registered Academies | IBJJF https://share.google/jr0R8qrPtAd8fpiY1
We also looked up David Lang and David Bean on the IBJJF black belt registry and didn’t find certification under either name.
We also tried to contact José Pelé Landi Jones about Lang being a black belt student of his, but we haven’t gotten a response. The retired fighter currently resides in Curitiba, Brazil, and trains at a local Gracie Barra school in Curitiba and still teaches Muay Thai.
It seems like Lang thought he could get away with scamming people in a small Alabama town into believing that he was something that he wasn’t again. Sorry, Da Silva, the internet is forever and people don’t forget about fake BJJ black belts.
Bobby is martial artist for almost 20 years with a BJJ black belt under Professor Sergio Miranda. He is also a karate black and former combat sports athlete, who loves all things grappling.