An MMA Thanksgiving: 2022 All-Turkey Team

‘Tis that time of year again, folks. While most Americans are sitting around stuffing their faces with turkey, dressing and mashed potatoes and mellowing out to a tryptophan overdose, the staff at Sherdog.com has compiled its All-Turkey Team for 2022. In the past, mixed martial arts has provided us with quite a few questionable characters, and this year has been no exception. The latest group of offenders—or members—delivered what might have been the most eclectic rap sheet yet. ***

Dale Brown

From its inception in the early 1990s with Shooto, Pancrase and the Ultimate Fighting Championship, and going back even further to the style-versus-style gym wars of Brazilian no-holds-barred fighting, the sport we now call mixed martial arts has to some extent been about demonstrating what works, or does not work, in a “real” fight. The first dozen UFC events were replete with practitioners of “American Ninjutsu,” “Pit Fighting,” “Jo Son Do” and “Scientifically Aggressive Fighting Technology of America,” to name just a few. Most of them lost in humiliating fashion and disappeared into the shadows of history, along with their made-up fighting systems.

However, decades after MMA weeded out most of the self-styled ninjas, there is still no shortage of goofballs and snake oil salesmen seeking to market themselves as the keepers of deadly and esoteric martial arts knowledge, as a 30-second perusal of YouTube will readily attest. Those hucksters still intersect with the world of professional fighting on a fairly regular basis and when they do, the reasons are usually obvious. Sometimes there is a personal relationship with a well-known fighter; other times, the charlatan in question is already famous. Think of 90s action film star Steven Seagal—a legitimate aikido master, to be fair—hanging out with elite fighters Anderson Silva and Lyoto Machida in the 2010s, appearing in their training footage and even at their fights in the UFC.

Fast-forward to 2022 and the rise of Dale Brown, purveyor of a self-defense system he named “Detroit Urban Survival Training,” or D.U.S.T. for short. (S.A.F.T.A. founder Lew Hicks would have been proud… or might have sued.) Brown’s clownish persona and patently dangerous videos demonstrating techniques for disarming a gun wielder at melee range would not have stood out from the crowd, except that he began to draw the attention of well-known MMA fighters and trainers. The most notable was Joaquin Buckley, one of the fastest-rising stars of the COVID-19 era and author of perhaps the greatest knockout in mixed martial arts history.

While legitimate self-defense instructors and MMA and Brazilian jiu-jitsu teachers called out Brown on social media or made response videos from afar, “New Mansa” filmed himself entering Brown’s “Threat Management Center,” stating that he wanted to “meet this guy and see if this s--- is real, see if this s--- is legit.” The answer appeared to be yes, since Brown immediately began cropping up in Buckley’s training videos, accompanying him in public and became part of his fight-week entourage at UFC Fight Night 201 on Feb. 19.

The D.U.S.T. guru with his tactical vest full of prop weapons following Buckley around Las Vegas was silly-looking but not especially weirder or dumber than Seagal hanging with Silva and Machida a few years before, except for one important distinction. Silva and Machida were having great fun, garnering photo ops with an aging movie star and letting him boast that he had taught “The Dragon” the front kick with which he had knocked out Randy Couture, but they were very clearly in on the joke; and one thought—or hoped—that Seagal was, too. In contrast, Brown and Buckley were straight-faced enough that it looked as though Buckley might actually have been taking fighting tips from the man, and Brown absolutely seemed to take his role seriously. Fans and media alike began to wonder, if not worry.



Any doubt about Buckley’s true intentions was shattered on fight night. After earning a well-deserved split decision win over Abdul Razak Alhassan, Buckley took to the mic for his post-fight interview, put his arm around Brown and graciously thanked him for his help in… marketing the fight. Buckley’s smile and the crestfallen look on Brown’s face told an entire story. Many of us had been in suspense, but Brown was the last one to find out.

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