As many of you know, I’ve been caught up of late in a bit of a internecine war waging in a specialized discipline of submission grappling — a war that I’ve now learned is beginning to dovetail with my “career” as a blogger. To wit: Jake Shannon, the head of Scientific Wrestling (and self-proclaimed “renowned polymath,” “Human Rights investigator,” “hypnotist,” and so on) has added a bit about me to his (in)famous hit piece on my coach, Tony Cecchine — and the additions are suggestive not only of the grubbiness of Shannon’s character, but they touch upon happenings here at pw that you will recall I was at pains to deal with at the time of their unfolding. Behold!
Cecchine has since recruited a dubious political hack and internet bully to manage a spin campaign to try to resuscitate Cecchine’s tarnished brand. So far, it has only gotten him banned or earned him a well-deserved reputation on internet forums as a “troll”.
First off, let’s address the easy stuff.
1) 1) Tony Cecchine hasn’t “recruited” me for anything. I’ve been studying with him for a while, true. But what I do I do because I want to — and I don’t think even my enemies would ever confuse me for a yes man.
2) To my knowledge, I haven’t been banned from any of the grappling forums.
3) When your “opponents” are calling you a troll, you tend to wear that as a badge of honor. The people at Bullshido who call me a troll are the same ones who were trying desperately to protect and defend Shannon’s Lead Instructor for Certification, Kris Iatskevich — who lied about his entire martial arts background — in a thread Shannon noticeably avoids linking to.
4) Shannon doesn’t get to tell people what I’ve succeeded at. I realize he’s a “mind control” expert, but I’m confident that even without his cut-rate psychic guidance many people are capable of deciding for themselves how successful I’ve been at getting the truth out. And one thing I’ve demonstrably succeeded at is getting Shannon to take notice of me personally. Really. I can document that. Scientifically, even.
Anyway, clearly Shannon’s above claims are all dishonest on their face, so I don’t want to spend a whole lot of time on them, except to point out that they smack of desperation.
But the rest is a bit more troubling.
One of the problems with posting on a political site under your own name is that those who disagree with your politics — if they don’t have particularly solid ethics or scruples — can (and will) attempt at every turn to damage your reputation. The reason is obvious: they hope to discredit you as a source so that they can claim that what you argue has no merit — that your person (as they describe it) is equal to your message (again, as they describe it).
— Which is why Jake Shannon links to several sites that write about me while studiously avoiding linking to anything I’ve actually written — particularly as it pertains to his campaign to sully the reputation of his primary competitor. Me, I happily link to his piece, because I realize that the more it’s pressured, the less likely it is to hold up to scrutiny. Clearly, Shannon has no such illusions about mine.
And then of course, there are those who are out to damage your reputation simply because you had the temerity to argue that the way they look at language is both wrong and dangerous to classical liberalism — and they are willing to do so because it helps assuage a bruised ego. Unfortunately, they don’t take into consideration the very real damage they can do. Your name is yours, and it exists outside of the “blog” world. Which is why I’ve always tried to protect mine.
But as Shannon’s links make clear, that’s a losing battle when someone is determined to smear you.
Transparent and heavy-handed are Shannon’s machinations, certainly; but people like Shannon are only really hoping to influence the easily gulled or the lazy — those who may already be inclined to dismiss anything that disagrees with their preconceived ideas, and so look around for rationalizations to do so.
Here, Shannon “recruits” help: namely, Patrick Frey and the fellas at Sadly, No! (Interestingly, Shannon claims to be a right-leaning libertarian; but I guess if the far-left site Sadly, No! can be put to use, who is ol’ Jake to let principles get in the way of a good character assassination? After all, it’s one of the things at which he truly excels.)
Did Frey foresee that some internet huckster — a guy who peddles mind control products and plays hypnotist part time — would one day use him as a kind of character reference?
Probably not. But here’s the thing: he should have. Because the kinds of attacks he levied against “me” — which were never aimed at me, specifically, so much as they were aimed at defaming my name — are precisely the kinds of attacks used by those who wish to control a narrative and squelch dissent.
Sadly, that tactic — while it fits perfectly into a leftist idea about “truth” and language — is not reserved solely for use by progressives.
And this, more than anything, will chase honest people off the ‘net, leaving the playing field wide open for only the most unscrupulous of characters.
Accordingly, I have made private my post about Frey’s honor — not because he deserves better, but rather because I don’t wish to be like him or Shannon or the Sadly No crew.
****
* I note in Shannon’s revised piece that he’s now claiming that Cecchine learned catch at least partially from Billy Wicks — a guy who Tony had never even heard of until well after The Lost Art of Hooking appeared. In fact, he’d been doing seminars with Matt Furey and Lou Thesz for a couple years before he ever met Wicks.
I am assuming Shannon is trying to pass this bit of fabulism off in conjunction with the release of some seminar footage from 2000, cut in such a way to suggest that Billy Wicks is “teaching” Cecchine something — when clearly, what he’s doing is using Tony to demo a “ball and chain” ride, which Tony acknowledges during the footage he’s unfamiliar with.
Of course, Tony didn’t spend years doing fake wrestling, so some of the moves Wicks mastered as a pro Tony is not going to know. The “ball and chain ride” is not some staple of catch wrestling. And his showing Cecchine that move is no different than, say, Billy Robinson showing Josh Barnett and Erik Paulsen moves on his W.A.R. seminar series.
** Shannon has added several other tidbits to his piece, so let me address them here before I add them later to the official blog. Shannon points to ICWA Vice President Bill Cogswell’s assertion that Cecchine used multiple screen names to praise himself in the third person on grappling forums. He also claims Tony admitted this to him.
Tony denies this in no uncertain terms. In fact, he says Cogswell is lying, and he is asking for a public retraction (Cogswell was sent an email noting this).
Cogswell, like Shannon, attended that same 2003 Chicago seminar (and in fact, in the footage you can see he and Shannon together the entire time); and like Shannon, he set himself up early on, after the initial attacks on Cecchine, as a “catch expert” (even appearing as such on the WorldWide Grappling Forum). Since then, he has walked back those claims. And lately he has distanced himself from the catch world. We await his response.
*** Re: Kris Iatskevich, Lead Instructor for Certification of Shannon’s Scientific Wrestling, and his faked resume: Seems Shannon has quietly forgiven him — and in fact, he actually CELEBRATES the fact (though he doesn’t mention Iatskevich by name). No, seriously. The audacity, it dazzles:
If you really want to promote REAL catch wrestling, forget about the personalities involved. Find some place to wrestle. I started my club in Venice Beach on the grass with 3 guys. As the guys came on board we all pitched in to pay for some space in a small boxing gym, we’d meet Saturdays and some weeknights.
What will not promote Catch Wrestling effectively are fabricated histories, lack of gameness, “keyboard warrior” flame wars on internet forums, and any other “cult of personality” nonsense, all done at the expense of real Catch Wrestling done on the mat. I understand that sometimes people get caught up in lies or exaggeration, and for those who come clean there is forgiveness, even redemption! (As a matter of fact, the fastest way to make this disappear is to come clean and work together, in my opinion. Even Cecchine and Furey.)
[my emphasis]
Leaving aside the gall it takes to claim that catch wrestling will only suffer from the very thing your article was designed to do, what is most remarkable is Shannon’s attempt to turn Iatskevich’s having been caught in a 10-years fraud into a moment of “redemption.”
Unfortunately for Tony, his redemption will have to wait. Because first he has to lie about his lineage, and then he has to get caught. Then, grace!
Hi I’m glad you’re back… the formatting on the first par is throwing me off a little. But it’s been a long day and maybe it’s just me.
oh.
I admit I know little about Catch
but I do know you and Shannon’s trite appeal to dismiss you with the smears of others rather then addressing anything of merit you state is highly revealing.
I find this to be telling. It sounds like he doesn’t understand the respect that develops between a teacher and a student. No. It’s only mercenary in his mind.
What’s snake oil going for nowadays? We have scientific hair cures, cures for rheumy and dropsy, mind control potions… oh, and scientific wrestling.
I’ve been wondering what’s taken Shannon so long to make this move, actually. Seems right in line with the image he’s built for himself.
My honest sense is Mr. Patterico is as protective of his name as you are and maybe a little more even. This is why he can be sort of aggressive sometimes I think. I wish I could take you both out to that restaurant what cooks everything with an obnoxious amount of garlic. They even have garlic ice cream.
If Patterico would be protective of his name, why on earth would he publish foolish judgments like proclaiming Barack Obama a good man?
I do find it funny that Shannon implores us to take it to the mat when he has a long neck without any muscle.
What do you figure? 10 seconds to choke him out? I’d feel bad. He looks breaky.
Jake Shannon is a c*nt.
I think I already said one time that I bet he would take that back if he could… but that he probably wouldn’t say he would take that back if he could. He’s said very harsh things about the little president man since then. Mostly cause of what else are you gonna say.
garlic martinis!
I’ll say it, JD. Turtle-looking cunt, he is.
I think he looks more like a bald meerkat.
Is recruit right word? Shannon finds an old link to Patterico and Sadly No that is critical about you and uses that as some authority. An attack by Shannon to be sure–but from stones thrown months and years ago. I doubt either Patterico or Sadly No know who Shannon is (although perhaps Patterico is sending him creepy grooming emails by now).
I have attacked Patterico’s character too(I haven’t bothered with Sadly No, because at least you know where that douchebag is coming from).
Sorry to be so blunt but no submission guy has a neck like this. Just not possible.
I know, that’s what my neck would look like if I didn’t work and then work some more.
I think that’s why he put recruits in those little marky things.
I stand corrected. Also a bit weaselish, now that I think about it.
neck like this
This fucker needs to be settled in the ring. On the mat. In the cage. In a tub of Jell-o. Whatever this sport uses.
Necks, like none other I’ve seen, Starke, Bostik, Jacoby and May at one time, in their prime, in the basement bar at Childe Harold, standing right there. Jesus mercy.
Oh. Wow. “Jake Shannon with his conditioning invention, the Macebell”.
Like, no one’s ever used anything like that for conditioning, before. Probably not even a hammer of some sort.
The macebell has been in use for thousands of years. Ask an Iranian.
I have one in my garage, Slart. I call it a sledgehammer. Once in a while I hit a tire with it. I call the tire a Execelsior!
I invented the sit-up. And the reverse sit-up, which I call a fall-down.
Thanks. I get that. I still think the better word is “dredge”.
And being a conservative and profiled on Sadly No is a badge of honor–like being Olbermann’s worst person in the world.
In a different thread, Slart was saying he’d try throwing leg kicks at Jeff. I think I’d do the same.
With Shannon, I honestly think I’d try to talk him out of fighting. You look more like a dancer, I’d say. Follow your dream, I’d continue, no one can stop you now!
Slightly different strategies.
tonight you’re on the loose
here for Shannon to dance
Re: the neck. I believe he had some medical issues vis-a-vis his neck. So if you must attack his physicality, go after his psychic third eye.
Triple heh, ‘feets.
*
yours has a much better sound
My bad, Jeff. I’m ignorant as to what you’re referring to. So, again, my bad.
Is it just me, or do people who have the need to proclaim themselves ‘right leaning libertarians’ ever really walk the walk? Or do they all</i? turn out to be full of shit?
I mean, if that's what you really are then it is usually pretty self evident.
Of course, isn’t part of Shannon’s attack conveniently forgetting Tony’s medical problems?
HTML and beer do not mix, g’night all.
He does tend to bracket those, doesn’t he?
The best part is, he’s so rattled now that his chronology is getting demonstrably more difficult to sustain. He has Tony learning from a Japanese pro wrestler (whose stuff looks nothing like Tony’s) and a regional pro wrestler who never put out any instructional material, and whom Tony didn’t meet until years after Tony put out his first tapes.
In the clip of Wicks that these guys put up, he’s not showing submissions. Curious, that.
Yeah, that’s crazy talk, I don’t see any connection from what I’ve seen of Tony’s and any of that.
Like, not at all.
Cheryl Bernard is the hottest curler player ever. Curling is rather amusing. It is like a bad japanese gameshow, or life-sized shuffleboard for ice people.
Part of what gives me some trust in Tony is the fact he’s saying things that jiu-jitsu guys only figure out after competing awhile. Position first. Two part submissions (my term) where the snap (the pain of the hold) moves you to the tap (the joint lock). That’s my sport fighting interpretation.
You don’t stumble across this. Professional wrestlers don’t know this shit. Why would they?
That and all his stuff is naturally chainable. That can’t be accidental either. Or in anyway based on pro-wrestling show hold crap.
Well, that’s the thing, bh. When they started making these claims — that Cecchine had cribbed his material from a Fujiwara tape, etc. — very few people had seen the stuff.
Now, with Youtube, you can place Fujiwara’s stuff from Submission Master side by side with Tony’s stuff and see all the differences. Of course, if Fujiwara learned from Gotch, and Gotch showed hooks, you’d expect a little overlap. But what you see is very different, mostly because Fujiwara was a pro wrestler, and so he was demoing a lot of working holds.
Not saying one is better than the other — each has its context — but there’s no question that they are different, with Fujiwara’s stuff tending to be a bit more on the showy side. Which is what you’d expect, given the venue in which it was commonly used.
Okay, I’ll admit it, I had to search.
Cheryl Bernard.
Oh, wow. Just found a vid of Wicks’ student, Johnny Huskey, during his one pro fight. This must be the fight Tony got for him in Pancrase as a favor to Wicks.
Remember when you are watching this that Jake Shannon says the top wrist lock will only work on a novice, and that Wicks says he doesn’t like the move:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x0AEdXrlkUY
I wasn’t aware this was even available online. Best go add it to the blog. I’d heard Huskey told people that he lost because he got eye gouged. I don’t see it.
Also, keep in mind that Tony trained Jason Godsey, who was a Pancrase champ, I believe. Wicks’s student? 0-1, with a loss to a guy who finished up 9-17.
You don’t have to search, just turn on CNBC. Who would’ve thought that fake boobies would be found in a curling event?
If you Google Jake Shannon, proteinwisdom.com comes up on the first page.
I think the word is getting out, maybe.
Oh. Shannon’s name doesn’t show up here.
Hm. Must not be a polymath of renown. Jeff’s first post on him was the first time I’d ever heard of the guy, not that that means much.
Here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_polymaths
American Power tracked-back with, ‘Jeff Goldstein Knows a Thing or Two About Low-Life Leftist Scum’.
I shouldn’t say this because I don’t know the guy but you have to notice that he goes to the “fuck me” loose high guard for a couple seconds there.
That’s actually what we call it. The “fuck me”.
Heh. Yeah. We call it the whore’s position.
Thing is, he had a whizzer and could have heisted out. If he knew how to wrestle.
1am here. Past time for bed.
Illegitimi non carborundum, Jeff.
I took a “ground” class last week, and spent 2 hours working on techniques to avoid going to the ground. Every time we spar, I get some knucklehead, who inevitably wants to roll around on the mat. Dude shot on me and hit my kneecap square with his shoulder. Fortunately, I nearly put my foot through his ribcage.
JD, bit of advice. Don’t do any of that pick a partner sparring with newbies. Someone idiot is going to injure you.
Same here. ‘Night.
Patrick Frey’s zeal as an ankle-biter who won’t quit until he’s kicked up against a tree serves him well in his day job. But adding alcohol and having too much free holiday time proved to be ‘bringing the tree’.
tl;dr
I did Matt Furey’s combat conditioning series.
Powerful stuff.
All else here? Good luck.
You harp on stuff that others ignore, but Ive found youre usually right.
This company is based in Shelbyville, TN; a favorite client of mine.
Dunno why it comes to mind.
OT, but Andrew Breitbart is who Roger Simon wishes he could’ve been. At CPAC, Breitbart…
“Just wanted to remind you, Podesta, you waged war against the American people, you progressives. We’re coming after you.”
RIP Alexander Haig.
Well, so long as Shannon has decided to go after me personally, I suppose I should recruit a few of the better researchers here to help me put together a little history on ol’ Jake (real name, Jason).
Email me and let me know if you’d like to help me put together a sourced and accurate bio of this dude. Somehow, I doubt many of his claims will stand up to any kind of rigorous scrutiny. For instance, where did he get his certification to hypnotize? What do we know about the program from which he received his Master’s degree in finance (some of you guys know a lot about that kind of thing)? What’s his REAL training background (he claimed at one time to train with Randy Couture; but then, he also claimed at one time to train with Tony — which isn’t the case. Going to one seminar doesn’t make you Tony’s “student”)?
I mean, if someone is going to call me a “hack,” I’m cool with that — but when the guy doing the accusing is selling “scientific mind control” and self-publishing “authoritative” history books and paranoid anti-governmental polemic, my irony meter piques.
I just spit coffee all over the key board again! Funny. Thanks.
I’m too lazy to follow the links right now, but can someone explain how “scientific mind control” differs from, say, jedi mind control? Personally, I’m guessing they’re both just as realistic.
explain how “scientific mind control” differs from, say, jedi mind control?
Pffft.
One uses midichlorians, one uses science.
Obvious, innit?
Heh. Where else but Twitter Search? “Jake Shannon” brings up, amongst others, Shannon Elizabeth…
I sense a Jake Shannon series coming soon here to pw.
The Adventures of Jake Shannon, Mind Controlling Polymath (and submission grappler)
Episode 1 (pilot): “Jake and the Fat Man”
Synopsis: It’s Christmas Time, and Jake Shannon– world-renowned polymath, Human Rights Investigator, and champion of rigorous analysis — is on a mission: save the children from the FRAUD that is “Santa Claus.” Using his polymathistic hypnotic inventor powers, Jake puts the world’s children in a deep trance long enough to implant in their minds the contents of his Highly Acclaimed 3-day critical thinking seminar, while his sidekick, Billy Robinson, heel hooks Santa and sends him limping back to the “North Pole.” Guest stars include Bob Sapp and Mila Jovavich
It’s an interesting coincidence that the DoJ used the Friday doc. dump technique to reveal that their OPR will no longer be pursuing the politically motivated smear of OLC lawyers Yoo and Bybee in the interrogation memos affair. These men have been fighting false accusations for five years or so now.
Jeff, you could have John Bolton’s moustache do a series of interviews with Mr. Shannon’s neck…
JB’s M: Mr. Shannon, do you recall ever having learned anything from Tony Cecchine?
JS’s N: Now that’d be a stretch…
(oh. sorry. __)
Breitbart gets it. When they try to smear you as a racist fight back.
Jeff and RSM would agree.
Unfortunately, I would not put a certain blogger listed below as one of the good guys on this issue (I doubt RSM would do so either):
One of the reasons I’m fleeing the ridiculousness that is the “blogosphere.” And why I’ve soured on the petty tribalism of humanity in general.
You take it very seriously in some ways and not very seriously in other ways, the blogosphere.
But you’re bang on about the tribalisms.
sdferr
did you see how the NYTimes spun the report?
absofuckingamazing.
Well, let’s see. As a “blogger” using his own name, I’ve had to go to court and get restraining orders; and these days, I get to deal with a Google smear on my name that will stand in perpetuity — while one of those responsible gets showered with praise for his “stellar reporting” on behalf of the conservative cause. Plus Obama is President, and right wing sites are pretending that combating unfair charges of racism by the left by directly calling them out is a revolutionary new idea unveiled just for this year’s CPAC.
On the plus side,
On the plus side… you’re not an embarrassing twat.
Speaking of embarrassing twats, I wonder if Allah is more or less likely to go for hits with his “rile up the commenters” shtick now that he’s a Salem man.
What’s a Salem man?
*
I noticed MM didn’t mention that Bryan guy who went off to engage in frontline politics in Texas or whatever it was that took him off.
The Laura Ingraham show, sdferr.
Yep, no shout out for him.
History works that way in general. Things always get left out. That’s one of the reasons it sucks.
Meh. It’s time I took the hint and bowed out entirely. Maybe I’ll come back as a liberal. I’d be better at it than Charles Johnson.
hey on the plus side you’re my favorite one
JEFF G! YOU ARE FULL OF BULL SHIT AS PREISDENT Obama,the Pope & Tony Cecchine, no reply required
That’s some biting commentary there, billy. Any substantive rebuttal to offer or just the primal scream?
billy has some less-than-normative grammar skills, but maybe he’s another self-renowned polymath ?
[…] received the following email regarding Libertarian congressional candidate and erstwhile hypnotist/fitness trainer/human rights investigator/polymath/scientific wrestling expert Jake Shannon: Dear […]
[…] happening during the battle dovetails rather nicely with many of this site's themes, as I noted here. For background, see […]
[…] Me, I offer different advice to those who might stumble upon this ongoing confrontation and are looking for some semblance of truth: don’t worry about Shannon or me or any other player in this saga as people; just look at the evidence of what been done, when it’s been done , and why it’s been done. […]