On November 24, 2020, Steven Hatfield and Bret Gordon filed suit against Dr. Dale Dugas alleging, among other things, defamation by Dugas against their persons and businesses. Bret Gordon included a video made by Steven Hatfield regarding the case in a blog entry. The transcript of that video is presented here in its entirety and without comment.
For now. Good morning, facebook. Steve Hatfield here, Columbus, Ohio. I want to touch base on a few things. Obviously I don't do a lot of live videos. I don't jump on here and do too much in that area, but some of you have been following the situation, some haven't. Me and my student Bret Gordon have been under fire by a group of trolls, and they have decided that they are just going to continue to mess with us. This has been going on for about a year now. Things have just obviously gotten worse since people were bored out of their mind, they have nothing else to do. This whole Covid situation has definitely pushed people over the edge. In a nutshell, just to kind of break some of this stuff down, this is what's going on. These trolls have been harassing me and my student, running their mouth, making claims that aren't necessarily true, claiming that we are not who we say we are. They are trying to cause us problems within our business. They have contacted our students. They have reached out to some of our friends. They have spent countless, countless hours. These are grown men, grown men, that have just been absolutely bored out of their minds. I believe they wrote 41, maybe 42, articles or blogs attacking me and my student. They have gone as far as, um, they have just pushed some serious limits, just, some limits that I am really surprised and also impressed with. I mean, they have spent days, and hours and months just trying to debunk us, or whatever it may be. They went as far as contacting my instructor. They went as far as contacting Okinawa, trying to find out if I have my ranks in goju. They have went as far as causing me problems with some, just some friends, because friends have now started to question me, which I thought was kind of strange. I've learned a lot about people in general, and kinda how this whole thing goes. They're supposed to be martial artists, these guys are supposed martial artists themselves. They are, um, they don't even live in our area. So, I'm in Columbus, Ohio, one guy's in Colorado, the other guy is in Florida, another guy is in Florida, and then the rest of them are all under aliases, because they obviously don't want to be confronted in any capacity. They use fake names. They email family, they email friends. They've gone as far as taking pictures of my mother. They've gone as far as getting pictures of my brother, and putting them in articles and in blogs, attacking my step-father because of his past history, and he's no longer living. My step-father's dead, he died in 2009. They have went as far as, oh, man, I mean, to me it's just absolutely insane as far as they've went to try to attack us as martial artists. One guy is a supposed kung fu guy, another guy is a supposed Bujinkan ninjutsu guy, another guy is a supposed BJJ guy. I'm not really sure, to be honest I don't really pay much attention to them, I looked into them a little bit. But, apparently they are the martial arts police. They believe that me and my student don't deserve to have schools and that we don't deserve to continue doing what we do, and those of you who have met me, those of you who have worked out with me, those of you who have been a part of what we do, you know how we function, you know that every single rank is earned, nothing is ever given away, you are well aware of how this process works. So, they're claiming that we're going around giving out ranks. They're claiming that we are being disrespectful to other people. They're claiming that we're not informing our students of the way that we function and how we handle things. I cannot begin to tell you the amount of crap that we have been through, for an entire year, from people we have never met, people we've never studied with, people that know nothing about us. They just decided that we were going to be the target of the day for whatever reason. But, I am happy to say that, after the current situation where one gentleman, I'm not going to say his name, um, at this point in time, which I will explain here in just a minute. I'll give his name anyway in a minute, but, um, one gentleman wanted to fight me and my student. We are not fighters. We are not sport fighters. We're not MMA guys, that's not what we do. The guy wanted to fight us. We both accepted the fight, quote unquote challenge. He didn't want anything to do with it, backed down from it, never stepped up. Later on, as time went on, my student Bret issued another challenge. He accepted the challenge. He then turns around and emails the waiver back to my student. Just, uh, approximately two days later, he drives about two hours to Bret's school with two other people to go ahead and introduce himself, and to hand-deliver the waiver, also. I don't know about you, but normally if you're going to drive about an hour-and-a-half to two hours to go and hand-deliver something that you've already emailed, you might as well just go ahead and get it over with. You might as well step on the mat, step on the floor, step outside, whatever it is you gotta do, but at that time, he didn't. He was there just as a good show of faith, he claims. Realistically, I mean, I don't know why he was there, I'm just saying that you show up after driving an hour-and-a-half to two hours you might as well just go ahead and get it over. But, instead, he said he wanted to wait, and then meet Bret on the twelfth to go ahead and fight. Keeping in mind, prior to that month, he was making threats, which we have video proof of, some pretty nasty threats about what he was going to do to me, and what he was going to do to my student, he was going to submit us and do all of these different things. The truth is that nobody really needs to fight. I mean, if he really wanted to fight, he would have dealt with me. He's been offered to come to Columbus, Ohio numerous times. I've offered to pay for his trip one time, he chose not to. There's a gentleman here in Hillier, Ohio, that was running his mouth, talking all this riffraff, and he never wanted to address it either. He was given an opportunity to handle it then. I offered to pay for his trip because he said that he didn't [indecipherable], so I offered to pay him twenty bucks for gas. I offered to meet him. This guy in Hillier just didn't want nothing to do with it. He continued to run his mouth, continued to talk crap, so I finally addressed it in the manner that I needed to address it in. The situation is dealt with, done and over with, and I haven't heard anything from him. It may or may not happen again, he may start running his mouth, I don't know. But, um, so Dale Dugas is the guy in Florida. There's another gentleman named Barron Shepherd that's kind of spouted off a little bit, not too much, and then there's Don Roley in Colorado. They hide under aliases, they like to use fake names, they like to write under fake names, and what they have a tendency of doing is just consistently attacking people for absolutely no reason. They literally have attacked some of the greatest martial artists to ever walk this earth. They have disrespected some of the greatest martial artists to ever walk this earth. Now, I'm little, I'm small, not any other direction, like, I'm a small school. We have approximately 32, 35 students right now. Y'know, I'm not a big-time martial artists, I don't have a hundred students, I don't have fifty schools. Little Steven here in Columbus getting picked on by a bunch of people, some internet bullies and some trolls that don't really want to do nothing. It's kind of strange, it's interesting, it's petty. Y'know these are forty and fifty year old grown men, supposedly, with nothing better to do. Sadly enough it seems that their life is, uh, has been struggling for them, they've been struggling in their lives so they want to mess with people. They've caused some serious issues. They've affected some business issues. Just to be clear, I haven't lost any students due to their ignorance. I've lost friends, because, well at that point I guess people don't know how to read between the lines. But that's okay. Bret, as far as I know, he hasn't lost any students. Everybody's still fully supportive of him. It's crazy, the world that we live in, y'know. We're supposed to be martial artists. We're supposed to be respectful, have dignity, honor, integrity, all this other crazy stuff that we're supposed to have. They went as far as contacting one of Bret's students who is married, tried to contact her husband, and tried to get her in trouble. They went as far as contacting local police departments to see if I worked for any of those police departments because I was involved in public safety. They have gone as far as creating fake facebook pages, stealing our actual images, our logos, and rebuilding them. They have went as far as making claims that are just horrendous. That truly, I just don't understand why people do this kind of stuff. But, I am happy to announce, and happy to bring it up that, uh, that we have officially filed a lawsuit. The lawsuit is, uh, there's an actual case number, there's a case number that I will give out to you guys here in a minute. The lawsuit has actually been issued, and not only that, ironically, the police officer that came to take the report for Bret Gordon contacted Don Roley and contacted Dale Dugas. And so, Don Roley called back and spoke to the police officer. Apparently, they had some words, but the officer informed him that he is a suspect in a crime, and they continued to have their conversation. Some of the things that he had said, he had instantly removed off of his facebook page after the conversation with the officer. As far as I know, Mr. Dale Dugas has not contacted the police officer back. I don't know if he has or he hasn't, but during that time frame, he never called back. So, um, in that particular situation, I find it interesting. Um, he has gone as far as, Mr. Dugas has gone as far as contacting me specifically, um, and then making false claims after that. It's just kind of crazy, which, we again have screenshots. We have everything documented, every single thing that they have been doing. It's just crazy to me. The case number for that, for the lawsuit is actually for Dale Dugas, Don Roley, Gerald Greysmith and whoever else that they have within their aliases, um, they're all in the process of being sued. It's 2020-CA-001851, and the Complaint was actually provided and written by our attorney, who is Martin Pedata, and he has provided us with more than enough help to get everything taken care of that needs to be taken care of and addressed. Um, I don't know if this will show correctly or not, but I'm going to try to get it to show a little bit. Uh, let's see here if I can get that to pop up a little bit. (Turns camera toward computer screen.) It might not show up, let's see. Mmmm. Might not focus, but there's the Complaint that was filed. It's kind of, uh, not super-great in all this craziness, but the Complaint was filed with the county of Florida, and we're just waiting for an actual court date and a court time for that to be addressed, and it's against Dale Dugas a/k/a Gerald Greysmith a/k/a/ GG and a/k/a The Twelve. It's sad that we live in a world like this, the world where people are petty, people are childish and they get absolutely bored, and they feel the need to attack other people. Y'know, I come up from a time when, y'know, if you had a problem with somebody you came to see them. You spoke to them personally, you dealt with them directly. But, instead, because of the internet, we get to sit behind it, and press buttons, and hide from people, and talk crap and never really have any consequences. Y'know, to be clear, again I'm not this crazy fighter, I'm not a guy walking around here claiming to be a great grandmaster or anything of that nature. Anybody that's ever studied with me, anybody that's ever been in my school, anybody that's ever worked out with me, anybody that's ever been a part of my martial arts background, anybody that just knows me personally knows what kind of person I am. Know that I'll give my shirt off my back to you. They know that I will have your back one hundred percent. People know who I am. They know that I don't start fights. They know that I don't get into all that craziness, like that's not the kind of thing that I do. That's not what I teach my students, and any of my students watching this, any of my past students that are watching this, anybody that runs across this, [if ] that person knows me, feel free to make a comment, feel free to say whatever you want, y'know. You don't need to hold back. When there's issues, I address them. I see Miss Emma Norwood is on here watching this as well. Y'know, I helped raise two of her grandchildren, they're both black belts of mine, one of 'em is a green belt of mine, her granddaughter is a brown belt of mine. Y'know, she has seen a lot of things. She has seen a lot of things. And, she's seen how I address situations. She's called me and asked me for help in some situations, and I've shown up, I've had her back, I've done all those type of things. Her grandchildren can speak up. Again, anyone who's been around me that knows, that knows the kind of person I am. So, the crap that's going on, the kind of people that are running their mouths and saying things, realistically y'know, those that know me know how I am. And, for those of you that want to question me or not believe me or whatever, that's fine. It's not that big of a deal, because I'm not here to impress anybody, I'm not here to be everybody's friend. My dojo, we opened our dojo, and I've had two dojos, main, that we've run right here in Columbus, and I opened up a school prior, in 2002/2003 with a gentleman name Kenjiro Wayne in Gahan, Ohio, and then we went from that school to my main school which I opened here in Columbus myself. It was June 4th, June 5th, 2004 I believe it was, and we've been running ever since. Our dojo is just built on trying to have a core family, y'know. My school is for people that don't have anything. It doesn't matter what you have. If you don't have a mother, a father, a sister, a cousin, a friend, y'know. Whatever it is you need, that's what we're there for. I'm in the middle of the 'hood. I'm in the middle of the ghetto. My dojo is in the middle of the ghetto. I'm not there to make a bunch of money. If I was trying to make a bunch of money I'd be somewhere in the suburbs, but I'm not. I have students that know, y'know, if they can't pay their bill, I do my best to help 'em out. Like, I don't kick my students out if they can't afford their tuition for the month, or if they're struggling with something, y'know. I can honestly say that our school has been very supportive of everybody. We try to help everybody out the best we can. It's not just me, my students are the same way. I feel like, at the end of the day, y'know, people that know me, know me. And again, this is not something I normally do. I don't do the whole facebook live thing, this is kind of weird to me. I normally don't even speak out on this crap, but my attorney did suggest that I make a video and kind of let everybody know what's going on, because, y'know, I don't get on here and run my mouth. This stuff has been going on for a year, and you don't hear that much about it from me. Bret, that's a whole 'nother story. Bret will address things however he wants to address them, and I'm not gonna tell him that he can't do it. He's gotta address things the way he's gotta address 'em. He's under attack as well. But, I will continue to keep everybody updated as time goes on with this crazy mess. It'll be awhile before we actually see a courtroom, I'm sure. I'm guessing sometime after the holidays, so I'll have to make a trip to Florida and deal with it. I just find it odd that these guys are going as far as attacking me and saying that my blue belt is fake. I'm a blue belt in BJJ under Carlos Machado's organization. They're saying that, y'know, I earned my blue belt online, which isn't true. They're demanding that I provide them with every single certificate that I have. This group . . . This all started because they want me to prove who I am. They have demanded that I show every single certificate, every single document. Exact words, so that their experts can verify who I am, so their experts can verify all my certifications. And, once they verify them, they will determine whether they are fake or legitimate. They have went as far as saying that, y'know, and I'm just going backwards a little bit, they have went as far as saying that I'm not actually a ranked black belt in Okinawa in Meibukan goju, which isn't true. They claim that I am – that I was a temporary rank in Meibukan goju, again, which isn't true. Which, one of my good friends, Dan sensei is on here now watching too, he is from Meibukan. He was there during my exam. We even provided a letter from the, one of the main representatives, from the gentleman who actually manages all the way the Meibukan's ranked internationally for us. We provided a letter directly from Meibukan, showing that I am actually a licensed black belt. They, y'know, I provided my blue belt, y'know, just little things here and there. And there are some things that I will not provide. If you wanna see them, if someone wants to see them, they can come to my dojo, they can come workout with me. I have no problem showing anybody anything, which, truth is that paper doesn't mean anything. Y'know, they have made claims that I am using my certifications, and that Bret was using his certifications to attract students. I have never once had a student walk into my school, or call my school and ask me “What style do you teach?”, “Who were your instructors?”, “Who are you licensed through?”. They've never asked me those questions. When a student walks in my dojo, it's usually because they are either a) being brought in by their parents, or somebody is looking to get fit, they wanna feel better, they wanna be healthy, they wanna learn self-defense. Most people, your average individual, doesn't know the difference between karate, tae kwon do, kung fu, ah, they just don't know the difference. And if you tell them that you teach karate, they go “Oh, karate. Fine.”. And then they, sometimes, most of the time, mix up karate, tae kwon do. What they don't realize is that although, each martial art kinda comes from the same area to a certain extent, but each karate system is different. There is goju ryu, there's wado ryu, there's uechi ryu, there's all of these different styles. You have shotokan, you have isshin ryu, you have the tae kwon do arts, you have multiple different kwans. You have all these different things, and, so your average person doesn't know that. Y'know, somebody might ask you “Hey, do you teach kung fu?”. That's a possibility. Somebody may say “Hey, do you teach karate or kickboxing?”, and now with the modern push of MMA, people do ask “Do you offer MMA?”, “Do you offer this, do you offer that?”, in those areas. But, it's not common when it comes to karate, not anything of that capacity. Somebody might ask “Do you teach Brazilian Jiu Jitsu?”. People sometimes get Brazilian jiu jitsu mixed up with Japanese jujutsu. And there's different styles, different families of jiu jitsu. And so, this is where we tend to have these issues, where people are just confused. And, then you have these situations where people say, if you're not IBJJF, which is a Brazilian jiu jitsu organization, if you're not registered by them, then you're not valid. Or, if your instructor didn't come from this guy, then you're not valid. The point is that, at the end of the day, if you get on the mat, if you get on the floor, and you are capable of demonstrating your techniques and capable of doing what you have to do, what does it even matter? I mean, y'know, people are gonna say what they're gonna say. Nobody's always gonna agree with my rank. Nobody's always gonna agree with my position. Nobody's [always] gonna agree with what I do. It's not, I'm not looking for everybody's approval. These trolls, these people, these individuals that are running their mouth, truthfully I don't care. I don't give a damn about what they think. That's why I've kept my mouth shut so much. That's why I wouldn't say anything online. Because really, they're not gonna come to Columbus. They don't care. And even when I was in Florida, they didn't come to see me. Y'know, I'm not hunting for trouble. I'm not willing to get out here and argue and fight with these people. But, if you wanna come to me and have these aggressive conversations, that's fine, we can have them. But, I'm not gonna play this high school, middle school crap where we're online bantering back and forth to feed your ego and entertain your people. I don't really care. I'm a Carlos Machado blue belt. Fact. It doesn't matter whether anybody likes it. I really don't give a damn. Contact master Machado if you want, just like they did, and they're gonna tell you the same thing, that I'm a verified blue belt. You have a problem with my judo background? Who cares? It doesn't matter. You don't like my instructor, you don't like where I came from? Who cares? It's not for you, or anybody else, to determine my skillset, other than if you step on the floor with me. My judo background is my judo background. I do not teach sport, I have not taught sport for a very long time. We compete every now and again. We support certain people in their events, but that's it. I am not a large competitor. I am not a judo competitor. My rank, everything that I do in my school is geared toward self-defense. Ask any student, ask anybody that has ever met me, when I've ever preached anything about tournaments when my goal is self-defense. That's all I care about, is making sure that people have an opportunity to save their ass when things go south. That's what I care about. My BJJ is not tournament-related. I learned it because master Machado has certain things that they teach, and he teaches both. But, my BJJ is focused on being able to use it, or convert it into self-defense. That's what I need it for. Our judo is self-defense-related. That's just what we do. Our karate is self-defense-related. Wae kune do is predominantly a self-defense art. That's the way master West created it. He did do tournaments, he liked tournaments, but his focus was self-defense. Y'know, everybody trains for their own reasons and does whatever they do for their own reasons, and that's completely fine. You don't see me online attacking people for what they do, telling people that their techniques are wrong, emphasizing that one art is better than the other, I don't really care about none of that. None of that stuff bothers me, none of that stuff affects me. Y'know, I've spent my entire martial arts career helping other people. When they needed backing for their schools, when they needed supporting at certain events, when they needed rank as if when their instructors left them for any reason, if their instructors had passed away, if, y'know, they had a separation or a fallout with their organization or their school. Myself, and other black belts, and other people have made sure, within our group, that other people are taken care of. It doesn't matter if you agree with the licensing, certification or not. It's not for you to determine that. You can be unhappy all you want. You can say that it's wrong. That's fine, but we're still gonna keep doing what we're doing, and we've been doing it for a long time. We're gonna continue to help people. We're gonna continue to be here to help the students. We're gonna continue to be there at 3, 4, 5o'clock in the morning when something goes south and you need somebody to talk to. 'Cause that's what we do. Martial arts is more than puttin' on a piece of cloth, or wearing a uniform and going out here and beatin' on your chest that you're Billy badass. It's not about that. So, all of these trolls and all these other people that question our [unintelligible] and go, “Well, how can you be this age and have this belt?”, “How can you be this and have this?”. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. It's about what you are doing for that person, and for my skillset. It's just what it is. I'm not amazing, I'm not great, I'm good at what I do. No, I don't have a bunch of videos on youtube or facebook for everybody to critique and take a look at and give me all this crap about. I don't need to. The one thing that matters, is that my instructors, and my fellow black belts, and my fellow martial artists, those people that respect me, those people who have provided me with an opportunity to test underneath them and hold rank underneath them, that's what matters. That's what matters. If they don't want me to be part of their organization or their system, then they'll boot me out. They'll get rid of me. That's what they'll do. That's what they do. It is what it is, and I've never once, ever been kicked out of an organization. I've never once had my rank ever removed. Never. It's never happened. Now, obviously it's me talking. You don't have to believe it, but it's a fact, it's never happened. These trolls, these individuals that like to run their mouth and mess with people, they only mess with people because nobody ever stands up to them, nobody ever says anything. These guys, I'm not the only one they've been messing with, they've disrespected grandmaster Ronald Duncan, who's no longer living. They have disrespected a lot of the really, really deep, hardcore Daito ryu practitioners. They've disrespected, um, Moses Powell. They have disrespected, um, just, I mean there's a list of people. A list of them they've disrespected. These are well-known martial artists. They've disrespected Professor Lee. Anybody that does not meet their quote-unquote standards, and if you saw them, you saw their work and what they were capable of doing, you'd wonder how they even have the right to talk about some of these standards. Y'know, there are different organizations for different for different reasons, and there's a reason why each martial art has its own fractured section, y'know. It may have started here, and there was a beef, or an issue, or a disagreement, or whatever it may be, and so they splintered off and you end up with these different umbrellas of organizations and different things. And that doesn't make the martial artist less effective, it doesn't make him less valuable, it doesn't make him less honorable or anything. It doesn't mean any of those things. It just means that there was an issue, so they separated and went somewhere else. It just means that someone wasn't happy, they went somewhere else. It's just how it is. So, I'm gonna go ahead and end this video in just a second, but I just wanted to be clear that, y'know, luckily, with the help of Martin Pedata, this is something that has been, we've been working on for awhile. We had to make sure that we had everything lined up properly. So, the lawsuit is in effect, and hopefully we're able to get this stuff to end, and the only reason we're even going forward with this is, if you knew the amount of people they've attacked, the amount of people that are still living, the amount of people that have committed suicide actually, due to their amount of actions. And I'm sure that some of those people that committed suicide probably had some mental issues behind that, that's definitely possible. But, these individuals have been pushed over the edge because of these trolls, these specific trolls, to the point that they even talk about them. They've done some serious stuff. Um, y'know, and so, I felt like, y'know, Bret and I should talk about it. We agreed that we needed to move forward with it to, hopefully, minimize some of the amount of ignorance. Obviously, we're never gonna stop trolls, that's just never gonna happen as long as the internet's up. But, with this particular group, we'd like to, hopefully, minimize some of this crap, or hopefully stop it, really, would be the goal. Because people are suffering, there are other people out there that are being attacked. They just don't deserve to be attacked. I don't get it, it just doesn't make any sense to me. So, I will keep everybody posted. I will try to, I'm sure you guys didn't get a good view of the Complaint. I apologize again, I'm not super facebook live savvy, but I will more than likely post a picture at the bottom sometime today with a copy of the Complaint and the case number. Just in case these individuals pop up, which they, y'know, they're pretty good at it, saying that we didn't file, we didn't do this, we didn't do that. I just want to make sure the information's out there. So, I appreciate you tolerating me and my rant, my little bit of information. Feel free to comment if you'd like. Like I said, if you're a current student or prior student, if you're a past student or a current student, if you worked out with me or anything, there's, uh, if anything I've said is incorrect, y'know, please feel free to put it at the bottom. I'm not gonna delete the comment. It's not like that. Or if there's anything I've said that doesn't match up with your training as long as you were with me, please feel free to go ahead and make that comment as well. I'm always curious to know what people think, especially if they've been gone for awhile so they've had time to think about our training. Alright, I appreciate you guys. It's time. Have a wonderful, chilly, cold, rainy day here in Columbus, it looks like, and I'll catch you guys later. Take care.
2 Comments
Jeff Greenacre
12/28/2021 01:54:06 pm
Dugas is the real fraud here. It's probably Dugas that wrote this crap. Thing is, Dugas gets mad and angers real martial artists online, then wimps his way out of anything.
Reply
Jonn Lilyea
3/18/2023 03:41:27 pm
Hey Jeff Greenacre, YOU READY FOR THIS.. ?
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AuthorHarold (HK) Hayward, retired, enjoying life Archives
February 2021
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