“That’s all I wanted to do” - BJJ superstar Giancarlo Bodoni shares his deep obsession for grappling 

What began as a 12-year-old stumbling into a BJJ gym turned into a full-blown obsession that slowly, then all at once, became his life.

Giancarlo Bodoni didn’t set out with some master plan to become a world champion. He just really, really loved jiu-jitsu. After getting his first taste of the mats at a Rilion Gracie academy in Florida, everything else just kind of faded into the background. The more he trained, the clearer it became that there wasn’t anything else he wanted to do for the rest of his life.

Sitting with ONE Championship in an exclusive interview, he went into detail on how BJJ consumed his life:

“I was just obsessed with it. That’s really what it comes down to. I didn’t want to do anything else. I just wanted to be in the gym all the time. I just didn’t see a future for me doing anything else. I’d wake up in the morning, and that’s all I wanted to do. So it was more an obsession that became my life.”

It wasn’t always smooth. He had years of hard losses and hardships before he eventually broke through in 2022 when he won the ADCC World Championship, and again in 2024.

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Giancarlo Bodoni lauds ONE Championship’s efforts to promote jiu-jitsu to a wider audience: “This side of the world is getting an opportunity”

Now that Giancarlo Bodoni is part of ONE Championship’s growing roster of elite grapplers, he wants to do more than just compete. He wants to help elevate the sport on a global scale - which is exactly what ONE is also doing.

“[ONE Championship] is creating a situation where the entire world of jiu-jitsu outside of the U.S. and this side of the world is getting an opportunity to come up and increase the level.”

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