ONE Championship News Roundup

Welcome to today's edition of the daily Sportskeeda ONE Championship News Roundup, where we present the promotion's most important stories.

Today, we talk about Demetrious Johnson moving up the ranks in Brazilian jiu-jitsu, Christian Lee’s plans with his two world titles, and Anatoly Malykhin becoming ONE Championship’s 2022 MMA Fighter of the Year.

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#3. Demetrious Johnson receives his first stripe as a BJJ brown belt

Demetrious Johnson is considered one of the greatest mixed martial artists of all time. He grabbed that distinction thanks in no small part to his amazing grappling.

The reigning ONE flyweight world champion has an amazing wrestling base and he’s also one of the best submission artists in MMA. Johnson has 12 submission wins in his MMA career, so it may come off as a surprise that ‘Mighty Mouse’ has yet to become a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu.

Nevertheless, Johnson is already one of the best on the ground and he recently received his first stripe as a BJJ black belt from professor Yan McCane. It takes four stripes to get to the next colored belt in BJJ and Johnson needs three more to become a black belt in the gentle art.

Johnson, in a recent Instagram post, wrote:

“Joy!!! I’m so grateful to get my first stripe on my brown belt today under professor @yanmccane There’s something to be said about continuing to challenge yourself. My desire to always learn and add new tools to my game is endless. I’m proud that my family and I are part of Team @grplclub 🙏🏾 #passion #jiujitsu #journey”

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#2. Christian Lee plans to defend both his world titles, starting with the lightweight belt

Christian Lee achieved his dream of becoming a two-division world champion, but now comes the tricky part.

The ONE lightweight and welterweight world champion not only has the prestige of holding two world titles, but he also carries the responsibility of defending both.

The Singaporean-American star knows that he is probably the biggest target of anyone in ONE Championship. Just like his fights, though, Lee has since laid out a plan on what he would like to do after his storied gold hunt.

In an interview with ONE Championship, Lee said that he’ll defend both of his world titles, starting with the ONE lightweight world championship:

“The order that I’m going to defend my belts, I feel is gonna be very important because I plan to defend the belt at lightweight first. Right now I need to prepare, I need to work my weight down to the lightweight division, but it’s still very doable. I feel that when I prepare to defend my belt at the welterweight division, it’s gonna be different.”

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#1. Anatoly Malykhin bags ONE Championship’s 2022 MMA Fighter of the Year award

A handful of fighters had a tremendous campaign in 2022, but none can hold a candle to the dominant Anatoly Malykhin.

The Russian superstar had one of the greatest calendar years of any fighter in the world when he captured two world titles in his run inside the circle en route to being named ONE Championship’s 2022 MMA Fighter of the Year:

“Anatoly Malykhin TRULY made a name for himself in 2022 🏆 The Russian powerhouse became a two-division king – and he is looking for MORE next year 🤯,” ONE Championship posted on Instagram.

Malykhin started the year off when he became the ONE interim heavyweight world champion with his second-round knockout of Kirill Grishenko at ONE: Bad Blood in February 2022.

He then added another piece of gold at the tail-end of the year when he took on the then-undefeated Reinier de Ridder for the ONE light heavyweight world title at ONE on Prime Video 5.

Despite coming down to light heavyweight, Malykhin looked even more indomitable. ‘Sladkiy’ used his sledgehammer-sized fists to turn de Ridder's lights out for the first-round knockout win. In doing so, he captured the ONE light heavyweight world championship.