4. I don't see the IBJJF, their champions, or pretty much anyone as "elite". That's for peasants.
It doesn't matter what your opinion of the level of an IBJJF tournament is, or what names you call people who win their tournaments. If you want the level of notoriety sufficient to keep people from attacking your skill-level and integrity when you claim that you're better than a guy like Kit Dale, you're going to need to be on the podium at one of the four big IBJJF tournaments.
It's simple. Whether you care or not, people pay attention to what happens at the Worlds, Pan's, Brazilian Nationals, and the no-gi worlds. They pay attention to the ADCC and the World Pro. They pay attention to Metamoris and Copa Podio.
No one pays attention to what happens at NAGA, GQ (maybe a few GQ superfights), US Grappling, Kaizen, Copa Nova, or The Good Fight, and they certainly don't care about what happened at mission submission during the 2 years it existed.
It's much harder to get to the finals in the tournaments listed in the first paragraph, than it is in the one's listed in the second paragraph. You can't claim it's the same guys, because it's not. Having
one big name at a tournament does not, in any way mean "it's the same guys." It's
one guy, and he's probably just there to stay sharp. Having
some of those guys in a tournament you fought in 5 years ago at blue belt doesn't mean "it's the same guys." You were fucking blue belts at the time. In other words, what you did and
who you beat 5 years ago doesn't have any bearing on
who you can beat today.
If you somehow found yourself in a black belt division at the World Pro, you'd be in a bracket with a dozen big names, all of whom are elite level black belts. With the exception of a rare few, they all gained notoriety by winning IBJJF tournaments. They didn't get there by winning one brown/black belt division at NAGA with 4 or 5 guys in it.
Look at the bracket for the black/medium/adult division at the Pan's... There's 33 black belts registered. To name a few people whom everyone recognizes, Francisco Iturralde, Tanner Rice, Sean Roberts, Vitor Oliveira, Otavio Sousa, Victor Estima, Magid Hage, Leandro fucking Lo, and Oli Geddes are all fighting... I don't think you'd make it out of the first round, let alone the following four matches to get to the final, all of which are going to be against increasingly better people.
So Jordan, do yourself a favor and ask Mike to sign your IBJJF registration form. It's really easy to fill out. You only have to list the dates of the four promotions you've claimed to receive, and the name of the person who promoted you. Obviously Vinny Souza's name won't work because he isn't a second degree black belt... So, you can have Mike put down the date that you hand the form to him, and he can put his name in for the person that promoted you to black belt. It will cost you $35.00 dollars the first time you do it and $30.00 after that. You'll have to pay a company called SSCI2000 an additional $18.50 annually for a background check. If the IBJJF rejects your application for reasons other than a background check issue, it would lend credibility to your wild extortion claims, and that alone is worth $53.50.