Jun Yong Cho

Jun Yong Cho was born in June 1995 in Cheongju, the capital of North Chungcheong Province, South Korea, and raised in Daejeon. His martial arts journey began early in childhood through Hapkido — a discipline he pursued with enough dedication to earn a 3rd-degree black belt, a credential that reflects years of structured technical study before he ever stepped onto a BJJ mat.

The pivot toward Jiu-Jitsu came through a formative adolescent moment: Cho lost a scuffle to a friend who trained grappling, and that defeat left an impression he could not ignore. The experience raised a question about what Jiu-Jitsu could offer that Hapkido could not answer in a live scramble, and it set him on a new path. At age 16, Cho relocated to Seoul. While searching for a Hapkido gym to continue his original training, he discovered a training center that offered BJJ alongside it. He walked through that door, and it changed the course of his athletic life.

Cho's earliest BJJ instruction came under Jinwoo Park, a student of John Frankl, where he trained from white belt through purple belt. Park's lineage situated Cho within a structured pedagogical tradition from the outset, and it was under Park that he built the technical foundations he would carry forward. After his time with Park, Cho trained briefly under Myeonghoon Choi before arriving at Wire Jiu-Jitsu as a brown belt.

His brown belt years were competitive ones. At the 2017 IBJJF Asian Championship, he took gold in the featherweight division and added a bronze in the absolute, demonstrating that his game translated across weight classes. In 2018, competing at the AJP Grand Slam Tokyo, he swept both the weight and absolute divisions at brown belt — a double gold that signaled he was ready for the next level.

On June 7, 2019, Yong Won Choi awarded Cho his BJJ black belt at age 24. The promotion formalized a lineage that traces directly to the art's origins: Carlos Gracie > Helio Gracie > Rolls Gracie > Romero Cavalcanti > Ricardo Miller > Yong Won Choi > Jun Yong Cho.

Cho competes in the featherweight division at 70 kg (154.5 lbs) under the IBJJF ruleset. His preferred ground position is the Half Guard, and within that framework his signature entry is the Coyote Hook — a Half-Guard variation that isolates the near leg to generate sweeping angles and back-take opportunities. The technique rewards patience, precision, and exact weight distribution over raw athleticism, making it well suited to a methodical competitor who thinks in layers.

Cho's Hapkido background is not incidental to his grappling identity. Hapkido's emphasis on joint manipulation, redirected force, and body mechanics aligns naturally with the positional control and leverage management the Coyote Hook demands. The two disciplines share an underlying logic, and that continuity has shaped the way Cho conceptualizes control on the ground — turning a martial arts detour into a genuine competitive advantage.

Asian Circuit Dominance

Cho established himself as one of Asia's premier black belt featherweights with his gold medal performance at the 2025 IBJJF Asian Championship, claiming the top spot in the black belt featherweight division. The result placed him firmly among the continent's elite and validated the trajectory he had built since his black belt promotion.

European Championship Appearances

Beyond the Asian circuit, Cho has made consistent appearances at the IBJJF European Championship. In 2023, he earned a bronze medal in the black belt featherweight division — a result that demonstrated his competitiveness on a global stage well outside the regional events where he first made his name. He has claimed a second bronze at the European Championships as well, reflecting sustained engagement with that tournament across multiple years.

Early Black Belt Results

Earlier in his black belt career, Cho placed third at the AJP Grand Slam Tokyo in 2019 in the 69 kg division — a result that arrived in the same year as his promotion and announced him as a credible presence at the black belt level almost immediately. Taken together, his record across the Asian Championship, the European Championship, and the AJP circuit reflects a competitor who has tested himself widely and performed consistently at the sport's higher levels.