Lethwei Champion Dave Leduc gets promoted to BJJ Blue Belt

Today saw Lethwei Champion Dave Leduc promoted to blue belt in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Here, he was awarded the belt by Ertan Balaban, a Turkish black belt in Istanbul. Leduc reacted to the promotion by saying “Got my BJJ blue belt today it’s a real honor to receive it from professor Ertan Balaban in Istanbul. Is it true that you can’t headbutt when your in the guard?”

Interestingly, Leduc was actually a white belt for many years and made him MMA debut back in 2014. Since then, he has focused mostly on Lethwei but has still trained BJJ sporadically and has even done the odd competition in a no-gi setting. When coupled with his strength and athleticism from being a top athlete, the reality is that he was probably not a white belt in terms of skill!

Still, it’s nice to see formal promotions given and that experts can still try their hand at other martial arts from time to time.