Things You Shouldn't Say Online, Part Two

On June fifth, Ron Collins wrote a blog titled, “I am done talking.” In it, he vowed to travel to Colorado to confront Don Roley on his doorstep. In the time since he wrote that he was finished talking, Collins has written multiple blogs  attacking Roley (which, when printed, are tens of pages long each), videos doing the same (one in which he sounds hoarse and tired, as if the strain of his delusions is getting to him) and typing literally dozens of pages of comments about how he hates Roley and is going to go sue him (either before or after he travels to his home).

In the years that Collins has been active on the internet, he has made numerous threats to go see someone and do violence. Not once has it gone all the way to exchanging blows. There is always an excuse from Collins to avoid such conflict, or an accusation that the other person is to blame for his inaction. It has caused him to be a subject of scorn and mirth by thousands of people.

When Collins faced Roley from behind four members of the Black Dragon Fighting Society in October 2016 in Kentucky, he probably did not expect Roley to outmaneuver him with the simple statement that Roley wasn’t going to fight anyone else first. Up until that point, Ron had acted very brave, pretending to want to come to blows and having to be restrained by those with him. But when his companions said that he was free to fight, he changed tack and vowed revenge of a legal sort and retreated as fast as he could. It was a complete humiliation in public. He has been wrestling with that humiliation ever since, desperate to somehow spin what happened into a moral victory for himself. He has projected his cowardice onto others, accusing them of all manner of imagined crime... and still, his failure to step out onto the mats when given the opportunity to spar Roley has been posted online for the world to see. He can't accept it. He can't deal with it. It is eating him up.

In short, it broke him.

Since last October, Ron has been reduced to putting out blog after blog, video after video in an attempt to try to tear down Roley and somehow convince people that he did not back down from the chance to fight. His entire life is spent on the internet with the obsession of somehow doing damage to Roley (and the long list of other people Ron seems to hate). What do all of Ron's imagined enemies have in common? They are all people who have challenged the way Ron sees himself. They are all people who have pointed out that Ron does not have the experience, skill, temperament, or background to be a martial arts teacher. Yet Ron continues to refer to himself in the third person as "Sensei" on his Facebook "Shadow Warrior Press" page, desperate to be seen as a person of authority.

Collins has threatened Roley online. In the comment section of youtube he said that unless Roley agreed to meet him on neutral ground that he would cripple him in his living room in front of his family.

This is a serious thing, if Collins was actually going to make an effort to go through with it. The consensus is, it is mere internet bluster. Collins has a long history of it, and there is little reason to believe that he will follow through now when he has fled every chance to face someone on equal ground.

The excuse that Collins gives for running from the fight in Kentucky is that it would cause him to be sent to jail and not Roley. And yet he stood aside as Stephen Day asked for the same type of fight. He quotes a law that is not applicable in a situation where both parties consent to the confrontation. And Roley went out of his way to write a blog and post a video making it clear that Collins would not be an intruder if he came to follow through with his threat of fighting him. In such a situation, either both parties are at fault or neither can be held accountable.

Collins is trying to hide behind the law and the sickness of Roley’s wife. She has cancer and in a video Roley made it clear that any conflict had to be done in such a way that there were no legal troubles. It had to be off the street and both sides had to make it perfectly clear that it was consensual and thus no one really faced any risk of jail. In the video, he explained that it was up to him to take care of her and his children for a while after each treatment of chemo and he would not risk not being there by some fight on the street and risking Collins trying anything like claiming it was he who was attacked.

Now Collins is trying to use that against Roley in an attempt to save face. His calls for neutral ground reference the fact that they might both spend several months in jail afterwards. He knows Roley will not do that, so he presses his call because he knows he is safe from a response. He is counting on Roley caring more for his family than actually taking Collins up on his offer. This allows Collins to look tough and portray Roley as backing down.

But Roley already has a seminar set for Maryland in August. It is much closer to Collins that Colorado. He has put out a video saying that if Collins wants to talk, fight or whatever, he can do it with him there.

Obviously, Collins is already making excuses as to why he won’t confront Roley there.
Despite the escalation of threats by Collins, no one seems to seriously think he will go on the road. He has refused to give any dates when he might go, and is expected to instead try to milk it for as long as possible before coming up with another excuse to not face anyone. While he stays in West Virginia, he does not have the ability to harm Roley’s family. So he can’t be considered a viable threat. Instead, he is just another poor obsessed lunatic spending his entire day on the internet trying to damage someone without exposing himself to danger.