Martial arts instructors and ‘masters’, as we all know, can vary quite wildly in ability. You can have some instructors who are as legit as it gets, and then have some others like we see in the following examples, who have no ability whatsoever and are complete and utter charlatans.

For those of us who grew up before the internet, it was almost a complete matter of luck on the martial arts instructor you got and it was usually just whoever is teaching closest to where you lived.

Nowadays, though, it’s pretty easy to find out who is legit and who is not. These types of phony martial arts masters are usually found in the realm of traditional martial arts, where not having much ability is unfortunately pretty common.

In more modern arts, however, like BJJ and MMA, these instances of fraudulent instructors are much rarer as they’re going to be found out. But, like we see in the first couple of examples, it still occurred a couple of times.

5) Rafiel Torre

This guy hung around the early days of the sport where he claimed to be a BJJ black belt from Brazil who then since turned reporter. He fooled a lot of people and even hung around high-level grapplers and fighters like Eddie Bravo and Tito Ortiz before they figured out what was up.

Here he is competing in a grappling competition and it is quite clear he has no ability whatsoever. Torre ended up getting convicted of first-degree murder in 2011 and is currently serving a life sentence.

4) David Lang

Lang is another fraudster who claimed to be a BJJ black belt from Brazil and it was actually our very own Underground forum that helped to expose this guy as a phony. He claimed to be a black belt under Wallid Ismail and of all people you could have lied about being a black belt under, Wallid is one of the worst possible choices.

We see here in the above video, BJJ legend Wallid addressing Lang’s fake claims with utter disgust.

3) George Dillman

This guy is one of those ‘no-touch’ KO masters who is teaching utter nonsense and, what is almost even more astonishing, is all of his students who just go along with what this guy is teaching like they are in some type of weird trance.

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Check it out in the above video to see some of the nonsense this guy is putting out there and him getting exposed.

2) Count Dante

Count Dante is one of the more interesting examples on this list, as it appears he was once a legitimate martial artist who perhaps just lost his marbles one day and created his own martial art of Dan-te, aka the DEADLIEST art, and started marketing himself as the DEADLIEST man who ever lived.

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It is unclear if this is all just some elaborate troll job, but like we see in the above video, it certainly doesn’t look it.

1) Frank Dux

Mr. Dux is perhaps the best example of a phony martial arts master. He rose to fame after the martial arts documentary ‘Bloodsport’ (starring Jean-Claude Van Damme as Dux) became a big hit, but we since found out that it was all just BS after all.

This guy even went so far as to buying a fake trophy for himself from a trophy store in California, which he denied, but the owner of the store later proved with the receipt.

Check out the above video to see why some of his claims from the documentary Bloodsport just make no sense at all.