Achieving the rank of black belt in any martial art is something that very few people will ever achieve but UFC Welterweight Vicente Luque has earned a unique reward as he received the final belt promotion in both BJJ and Luta Livre on the same day! The top contender announced the news of his double black belt promotion in a post on his official Instagram account where he gave special thanks to his two coaches, Toquinho Saldanha and Erik Silva.
The promotions come at a great time for Luque, who is currently riding the most impressive streak of victories in his entire career. He’s had longer win-streaks in the past but the calibre of his most recent victims and the manner of his victory is what makes it truly impressive. Since a 2019 decision loss to Stephen ‘Wonderboy’ Thompson, he’s rattled off four finishes of top-tier opponents including Michael Chiesa and former UFC Welterweight world champion Tyron Woodley. Including his most recent run, Vicente Luque has used his impressive BJJ and Luta Livre skills to put together a 14-3 UFC record that now sees him sitting pretty comfortably in the top five of the division.
He hasn’t quite earned a Welterweight title shot just yet, but with Kamaru Usman having already knocked out Gilbert Burns and scheduled to fight Colby Covington soon, he would technically be next in line. The most likely scenario given the length of time until Usman is ready to defend his title again is that Luque will have to take on one more fight and the logical opponent looks to be Leon Edwards, who currently sits just one spot lower than Luque in the official UFC rankings.
