Originally Posted by WarChild

Well Danza came clean about his real ranking now, so I guess that's fair enough. I bet he feels pretty silly saying he was a black belt, knowing now how much work a purple belt takes.

Belts are more of a starting point and a measurement of your personal level of commitment and development. People train for lots of different reasons, and only a small portion ever compete (even in BJJ tournaments, nevermind MMA). People have different levels of athleticism and naturally ability as well. So if a 19 year old kid who wrestled in high school starts BJJ at the exact same time in the exact same class as a 45 year old accountant who's doing it for a sport and the exercise, you have different expectations of them. If they both train hard, in a year and a bit they'll both be blue belts. Will they be equal as opponents? Obviously not.

So when you look at a purple belt (like I am too), you're looking at someone who's put in 5+ years usually (6 for me so far) of training to get to that level. You can expect they won't make rookie mistakes and have a fairly good understanding of all the techniques, and more importantly, how to apply them live. Pretty much anyone, with enough work, can get to a blue belt. Purple belt is where is starts getting tough.