Canadian jiu jitsu athlete Dante Leon goes off on Jits Magazine after reading their article about Roberto “Cyborg” Abreu’s performance at Grappling Industries.
This past weekend Dante faced off against Roberto “Cyborg” Abreu at a Grappling Industries tournament. The match took place in a open bracket which means all belts were eligible to compete. Dante questioned if Cyborg and himself were the only black belts in the division. However, the bracket consisted of three black belts (including Dante and Cyborg) one brown belt, one purple belt, and one blue belt.
Cyborg finished four of his matches by submission and looked really impressive (as he should against lower level opponents). However, Dante proved to be a tougher challenge and the two fought until the time expired. The score was 0-0 and Cyborg won the referees decision to take home gold in the division.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/CpkdnEprZb6/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
Dante posted about his tournament experience on his Instagram story (now his actual instagram feed as well) with a brief caption explaining his experience and how he had lost to Cyborg in the finals.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/Cpdd387J3Zv/?igshid=YmMyMTA2M2Y=
Cyborg posted clips to his Instagram over the next few days of himself demolishing the lower belts in the tournament.
Then Jits Magazine, a major jiu jitsu media company, released an article about the tournament that caught the attention of Dante. In the article the writer claimed that Cyborg had won both his matches against the black belts he faced (implying he only had two matches, both against black belts) by submission. Dante took a problem with this as the article seemed to imply that Cyborg was levels above Dante and that he had easily submitted him like the rest of the competition.
Dante posted to his Instagram story slamming Jits Magazine for their lack of research on the tournament. Dante said he’s not looking for favours, just the truth.
The truth is what Dante got. Jits Magazine released a public apology for the incident and stated that the journalist who wrote the article hadn’t researched the tournament and would no longer be working for them. They also re-wrote the article again this time with proper research done.
It’s unfortunate that one of jiu jitsu’s biggest media and news sources can’t get information right about a simple tournament. Let’s hope they can improve their research from here!