Senator Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma — DHS nominee, former plumber, and self-described “black belt world champion” — told a BJJ coach during a congressional job interview that he once flew to Brazil, entered the World Championships, fought a Gracie in the finals, beat him using wrestling, and was then invited by the Gracie brothers to stay and teach.
Which Gracie? He couldn’t remember. You know how it is. You go to the World Championships of a martial art, beat a member of its most famous family in the finals, get personally invited to their compound in Rio — and the name just slips your mind. Happens to everyone.
The BJJ community, being the one sport on earth where every blue belt match from a 2010 Miami Open gets indexed and archived forever, needed roughly forty-five minutes to locate Mullin’s actual competition record: one win, at blue belt, in a local tournament in Florida. Not Brazil. Not Worlds. Not against a Gracie. Not at black belt.
His MMA record tells a similar story. Mullin’s Senate biography claims a professional record of 5-0. MMA databases Sherdog and Tapology can only verify three fights — in what appears to be a regional semipro circuit. When journalists asked his office about the two missing fights, they received no response, which is the political equivalent of pulling guard and hoping nobody notices.
The BJJ coach who sat through the interview came away with a clear assessment: “There’s just no way that this guy is telling the truth. I don’t even think he’s a black belt.”
For context, Renato Laranja — the BJJ community’s beloved fictional parody character who claims to be a 27-time world champion — has a more internally consistent backstory. Laranja at least commits to his bit. He knows what belt he is. He can name specific techniques. When pressed on his credentials, he doubles down with conviction rather than forgetting the name of the person he supposedly beat in the finals of the world championships.
This makes Renato Laranja, a character explicitly designed to mock credential inflation in martial arts, more credible than a sitting United States senator.
Mullin also owned a BJJ and MMA gym called Oklahoma Fight Club while serving in Congress, which drew a House Ethics Committee investigation for income exceeding congressional limits. So at minimum, he found a way to profit from jiu-jitsu without being good at it. Which, to be fair, is a skill.
AI-generated satire. Sources linked below.