ONE Championship founder and CEO Chatri Sityodtong has just been promoted to black belt in BJJ live on air during ONE 168, by the legendary grappler Renzo Gracie. The promotion clearly came as a complete surprise to Sityodtong, who was visibly shocked and emotional when he realised what was going on. Renzo surprised him with with the belt while they were busy talking about the event, and the crowd cheered as he tied it around Sityodtong’s waist. This is actually the second martial art that Sityodtong has reached a high rank at, as he has already reached the rank of Kru in Muay Thai.
This latest promotion has been a long time coming in fairness, as Sityodtong received his BJJ brown belt around three years ago now. He’s been training in the martial art for an incredibly long time now and actually began his BJJ journey under Renzo Gracie as well. Sityodtong was already an experienced Muay Thai fighter by the time he first started BJJ in 2005, training at the famous Renzo Gracie Academy in New York City. He retired from the competitive side of Muay Thai 2008 but has kept up his training in both sports, being promoted to blue belt by Rafael Lima and purple belt under Leandro Issa.
It was around this time in 2011 that Sityodtong founded ONE Championship (then called ONE FC) after having already established the chain of gyms, Evolve MMA, in Asia. The promotion went from strength to strength while focusing on MMA but the decision to broaden their horizons into other martial arts over the least few years has really set them apart from competitors. Now ONE Championship has world champions competing in MMA, Muay Thai, Kickboxing, and submission grappling at dozens of events all around the world every single year.
ONE Championship shared the clip of Chatri Sityodtong being promoted to BJJ black belt by Renzo Gracie at ONE 168 in a recent post to their official Instagram account:
