Judo USA Olympic silver medalist Travis Stevens on whether Vladimir Putin earned his black belt or not

On a recent podcast with host Lex Fridman, Olympic silver medalist and USA’s greatest ever male Judoka Travis Stevens spoke on the black belt of Russian president Vladimir Putin. For many years, Putin has held the rank of a Judo black belt and even has several dans to his name. There’s also a number of videos out there showing his techniques and he’s even written a book and video instructional on his favorite Judo moves. With this said, it’s clear that Putin loves Judo.

Here’s what Stevens had to say on the matter, “I think it shows, if he actually got it – he earned it. That just shows a level of physical persistence and mental fortitude to be able to take those beatings and just show up until you’ve overcome and take those beatings.” It’s also known that Putin would have trained Sambo whilst working for the Russian KGB which was mandatory and makes sense as in terms of style, it’s quite similar to Judo.

This is a different outlook compared to a 2017 New York Times article that questioned whether Putin was actually a Judo ‘fraud’. This claimed his Judo training was the possibility of a strongman image and he may have not been legitimate. Regardless of your political opinions of Putin, it seems that he is legit as he’s backed up by Travis Stevens and others. Further – it’s practically a fact that Judo is much more effective than Aikido, which was the art trained by the critic.

Travis Stevens is also a black belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and was trained in Judo by the legendary US Judoka, Jimmy Pedro. As well as winning silver in the 2016 Olympic games, Stevens also won gold twice in the Judo Pan American games and one gold in the Pan American Championships as well as various medals elsewhere.