TAMPA, FL — Marcus “Razor” Edds, 38, a retired UFC welterweight with a professional record of 13-11 and three appearances in The Ultimate Fighter, opened Razor’s Edge Combat Academy in October to what he describes as “overwhelming community support” and what the lease describes as a month-to-month arrangement.
The facility offers Brazilian jiu-jitsu, wrestling, Muay Thai, “combat fitness,” and a kids program called Little Edges. Its website is professionally designed. Its testimonials are enthusiastic. Its BJJ lineage section, visible under the “Our Coaches” tab and accessible to anyone with an internet connection, reads as follows:
Helio Gracie > Various Masters > Real World Experience > Coach Razor
Asked to elaborate on the “Various Masters” section, Edds said he had “trained with a lot of guys over the years” and that “jiu-jitsu is jiu-jitsu.” He confirmed that he has trained with “definitely some black belts, for sure” and believes one of them “might have been under Renzo,” though he acknowledged he “didn’t always catch the paperwork.”
He does not hold a BJJ black belt. His belt rank, he explained, was “not really something he focused on” during his fighting career, which he described as having given him “the equivalent of a black belt in real application.”
His head BJJ instructor is a man listed on the website as “Professor Carlos.” When The Porra reached out for an interview, the academy replied that Professor Carlos was “unavailable due to seminar travel.” A reverse image search of Professor Carlos’s website photo returned a stock image from a site called shutterstock.com with the file name “confident_man_arms_crossed.jpg.”
Edds himself teaches the advanced no-gi class on Tuesday and Thursday evenings. Former students describe the curriculum as “mostly wrestling, some elbows if you mess up.” He has awarded three blue belts since opening, each in a ceremony he calls a “graduation,” complete with a certificate that lists Razor’s Edge Combat Academy as the issuing body.
“Lineage is for politics,” Edds said. “My guys know how to fight. That’s the lineage.”
The academy has thirty-two enrolled students. Seven have prior BJJ experience. Two of those have since requested refunds.
This article is satire. The Porra is a fictional publication. We support all gyms, even ones where the lineage is a mystery wrapped in an enigma wrapped in a stock photo.