What I mean is recent Frankenjura issiue, which should have made him a it considerate when claiming 9a+ done alone with strange belay technique...
To put you right, John made the first ascent of Violent New Breed 9a+ on June 21st, *before* coming to the Frankenjura. So your point becomes worthless.
I don't know why you are bringing up the issue of VNB, but I'll give you a few facts:
John's belaying arrangement was not "strange", it was perfectly sensible way of doing this route without a belayer. It only has 2 bolts, you tie off the rope to the first one (leaving enough slack to reach the top). Tied on, you climb unprotected the very easy lower wall (3/4 metres) to the first bolt, from here you can reach up and clip the slack through the second bolt from a good hold, now execute a 4 move V15 in safety.
The fact that John had no belayer is not too surprising as he generally climbs his harder problems between 5 and 8 in the morning. You try getting a belayer for these times! Also he had tried VNB on approaching 100 days or something daft, so finding a way of climbing it alone makes sense. It also makes it very unlikely that he would lie; if he was going to lie about it I would have thought he'd have done it sooner!