First let me state the following. I apologize for my vulgar posts and to all who were offended. Secondly, when this contraversy first started, facts were grossly mistated by the individual who started the thread. Because of this everything avalanched from there. Three days had gone by before I had even got onto the forum, and by the time I did I was pissed off to no end. The "message from David Vannest" was a private email that was sent to Don Cunanun which he chose to post on this forum. I understand some of you think Im some kind of "Gene Simco", or worse. But I did not promote myself. Jonus did get promoted and "was" a black belt at the time. Lonnie tried to hide all of this initially and it people were making it sound like I was calling myself a Joe Moreira BB or I just promoted myself. Jonus and I had serious issues with Lonnie. Lonnie wants to portray me as a psycho stalker, fine. That is the furthest thing from the truth. Lonnie is only giving you half of the truth. I guess by Jonus "promoting" me to BB was our way of giving the finger to Lonnie after he jacked us around. I know that this was wrong and this does not excuse my behavior but at the time I did not care or think of the consequences. I did introduce myself as a BJJ BB at a dojo in WV. Shouldnt have dont that either. After this situation had got blown up on the UG I came out swingin mad. I was pissed at Don Cunanun for his posts insulting me and I was pissed that Lonnie initially was saying that Jonas was not a BB and that I was getting piled on before all the facts were out. I will readily admit that I brough a lot of shit on myself because of my posts. But I still stand by my position as far as Lonnie is concerned. Lonnie would have never admitted that he promoted Jonus if all this hadn't come out. I also admit that I had no business "accepting" a black belt in BJJ from Jonus, especially when his relationship with Lonnie was in question, no matter what my experience or skills were. Now as far as my "number 2 ranking in the world", I took second in a sport jiu-jitsu grappling division world championship. I never claimed that I won the Mundials or something like that. Besides that tournament was like 10 years ago. My competition record is accurate and documented. How many titles has Gene Simco won? I dont remember writing any damn books claiming to be an expert on BJJ. My black belt in jiu-jitsu is through the United States Judo Association. I was awarded this in 1995 after being examined by several instructors of the USJA and being approved by their board. I have friends in BJJ that go back 15 years, I am sorry if I have offended any of them. My biggest mistake was not going to a professor of Brazilian Jiu-jitsu to be properly evaluated. At this point I fully intent to be evaluated by a BJJ professor and let him judge my level of skill and properly evaluate me. I will graciously accept whatever rank he may feel I am at. This is the only way for me to close the book on this situation. As for Lonnie, I have nothing to say to him nor to I wish to have any association with him in the future. My only wish is that the others he "promoted" dont get hosed the way Jonus did. For some of you on this forum that get off on trash talking that think by shaming me I would run off and hide like some of you asserted that Gene Simco did, I am right here and I am not going anywhere. Since I fucked up, I will take full responsibility for my part in this mess. In the future if something like this happens to someone else, have the balls to confront them directly if you want to keep the integrity in BJJ. Dont hide behind screen names and talk garbage. If any of you have something you want to say to me about this here's my email dvannest1969@yahoo.com. Hopefully this will put things to rest.
David Vannest