Black Belt Called MMA Champion A Fake In Front Of 200 People — 2s Later, Everyone Regretted It
Chapter 30
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Derek's jaw tightened. For the first time all evening, something flickered behind his composed expression that wasn't quite confidence anymore. "I don't know where you're getting your information," he said, "but I think we should let this go before it gets out of hand.""Funny thing about being a deputy for 31 years," Walt said. "You get real good at knowing when somebody wants a conversation to end because they're wrong, not because it's gotten out of hand."Somewhere in the middle rows, an elderly man Walt had known for decades called out, "Let him finish, Derek!"A few scattered voices echoed the sentiment, the room's collective patience for the evening's showmanship clearly running thin. A ripple of low murmurs moved through the crowd. Grant Wexler, sensing exactly the kind of moment his producers back at the station would want for tonight's broadcast, quietly repositioned his camera, angling it to catch both men clearly.Near the front row, Bill Sorenson leaned toward the woman beside him. "Told you something wasn't right," he murmured, satisfaction plain in his voice, though there was no cruelty in it—only the quiet vindication of a man who'd trusted his own read of a situation all along.Dorothy Klene pulled the folded pamphlet back out of her purse, studying it a moment longer before tucking it away again for good.Frank Dunlap, who had been sitting quietly with his own phone out for the last several minutes, stood up slowly from his chair."Since we're clearing things up tonight," Frank said, his accountant's voice calm, measured—the voice of a man who never raised it because he never needed to—"I did a little reading of my own."Every eye in the room turned toward Frank."I looked up your academy's registration," Frank said, holding his phone up slightly, though nobody could read it from that distance, the gesture itself enough to make the point. "Vance Elite MMA and Self-Defense Academy, registered 18 months ago. Before that, nothing. No fight record I could find anywhere. No amateur circuit results. Nothing on the National Self-Defense Instructors Registry either, which I understand is required for anyone teaching certified self-defense courses in this state."He paused, scrolling further, his brow furrowed the way it did over a spreadsheet that wouldn't balance."Your black belt certificate," Frank added, "the one framed behind your table over there. I looked up the issuing organization, too. Doesn't appear to require any testing at all. Just a payment and a mailing address. $69, according to their website. I checked twice."A few uncomfortable laughs broke out near the back, quickly hushed.Derek's smile had disappeared entirely now. "Credentials don't always show up online," Derek said, a defensive edge creeping into his voice for the first time all night. "That doesn't mean anything.""Maybe not," Frank said evenly. "But there was one name that did show up when I searched a little further back: a gym in the next county over, Reeves Training Academy, owned and operated, according to an old newspaper archive, by a man named Nathaniel Reeves."