In a sport where credibility is earned over years on the mat, Dan “Big Dan” Manasoiu carries the kind of resume that commands attention. The 6-foot-7 Romanian-American grappler is a 2024 ADCC bronze medalist and two-time ADCC World Championships competitor, the holder of 12 gold medals at ADCC Open events, and a double gold winner at ADCC Trials. Big Dan trains under John Danaher as part of Team New Wave and coaches at Ralph Gracie‘s academy.
Moneyberg, born Dale Buscowski, has spent the better part of two years as one of the most polarizing figures in the BJJ community. He received his black belt after roughly three and a half years of training, a timeline that typically marks the beginning of someone’s purple belt journey rather than the pinnacle of their rank.
Moneyberg has been open about spending approximately $3 million on private instruction, working with names including Jake Shields, Glover Teixeira, Lyoto Machida, and members of the Gracie family. Shields is credited with awarding Moneyberg the belt after what Moneyberg estimates as around 3,000 hours of mat time.
Moneyberg has never competed in a tournament. The combination of those facts has produced relentless online debate, and the skeptics have been loud.
Manasoiu stepped into that conversation in a video that has been circulating in grappling communities.
“You gotta realize the thing about Derek is that this motherf**ker like trains. He’s done more training in jiu-jitsu than most black belts. We actually do the mathematics on how many hours this guy trains.”
He then turned to the question of who was actually in a position to evaluate Moneyberg’s skill:
“Who’s he training with? He’s training with Royce [Gracie], he’s training with Jake Shields. These guys are signing off on it. Like, where are you to judge?”
Manasoiu did not overstate his case. He was direct about what the black belt does not mean:
“Do I think that he’s a world-class black belt competitor? No, absolutely not. I don’t think that for half a second. I don’t think he’s a world-class grappler. If Derek showed up to a gym and he said that he was a black belt, you wouldn’t question it.”
Where Manasoiu pressed harder was on the nature of the criticism itself. He questioned whether the people most vocal about Moneyberg’s belt have a legitimate basis for their outrage:
“Why are so many people obsessed with it? Like, why are you so obsessed with another man? Like, are you that insecure?”
His most substantive argument, however, addressed the underlying assumptions about how belts should be earned.
Host Chris Vazquez then asked, “People were afraid of like, you know, things going the the karate way. You pay your way up to the belt that you bought. You hear it all the time. There’s certain promotions that people shouldn’t get that they don’t compete. In this case, you feel that that’s valid?”
Big Dan replied, saying, “So many black belts haven’t f**king competed and they got their black belt and nobody thinks twice. If I was worth tens of millions of dollars, would I be out there going to risk getting my f**king arm broken?”
Moneyberg has made his own case across a pair of high-profile media appearances. On the Overdogs podcast with Mike Perry, he offered a pointed challenge to the bribery theory:
“Would it be easier for me to bribe 50 professional fig hters, 25 or so world champions, to lie about me and say that I’m a black belt? Or would it be easier for me to just do training and get my black belt?”
