Kron Gracie was born on July 11, 1988, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
He is the youngest child of Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu master Rickson Gracie. He was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, but spent the most of his youth in Los Angeles when his father migrated to California in 1989.
Kron is the late Helio Gracie’s grandson. His elder brother Rockson passed away in 2000, and he has two older sisters named Kauan and Kaulin.
Despite the fact he’s the sole surviving son of Rickson Gracie, he was trained by the Machado brothers since Rickson relocated back to Brazil following his divorce.
At age 10, he won his first tournament as a yellow belt.
At the age of 16, Gracie won the 2004 IBJJF American National Jiu-Jitsu Championship while competing as a blue belt in the Adult lightweight class.
After Kron Gracie received his purple belt, Gracie won the 2005 Pan Championship and the IBJJF World Championship and CBJJO World Jiu-Jitsu Cup in 2006.
As a brown belt the next year, he won double gold as he won the world championship for the second time and the Pan American championship for the fourth time. Gracie also had a record-breaking 51-match submission streak around that time.
When Gracie was 19 years old, he received his black belt a week before the World Championship in 2008. However, Gracie was submitted by Sergio Moraes in the first bout in the middleweight category.
A few days after the passing of his grandpa Grandmaster Helio Gracie, Gracie won the European Championship in 2009 after beating Yan Cabral in the final. He subsequently won silver in the middleweight class at the 2009 Pan American Championship.
At the 2011 World Jiu-Jitsu Championship, Gracie won silver in the lightweight class with submission wins over Leandro Lo and Gilbert Burns.
While competing for the Rickson Gracie BJJ team at the 2012 Pan Am, Gracie won bronze in the middleweight and absolute divisions after falling to ultra heavyweight Marcus Almeida in the final match.
The same year, Gracie also won the World Jiu-Jitsu Expo match by defeating Victor Estima in a close match.
In a No-gi match at Metamoris 2 in Los Angeles in June 2013, Gracie defeated Japanese MMA star Shinya Aoki in seven minutes with a guillotine. All of Gracie’s opponents were submitted via guillotine in October 2013 as Gracie won bronze in his division at the ADCC World Championship in Beijing.
Gracie declared his plan to pursue an MMA career in February 2014. Instead of competing in his customary weight class for jiu-jitsu and grappling, which is between 170-180 pounds (77-82 kg), Gracie decided to lose weight and compete at 155 pounds (70 kg).
He began preparing for his first MMA match with the California-based Scrap Pack. It is a group of combatants that included Gilbert Melendez, Nick, and Nate Diaz, all of whom were pupils of Cesar Gracie Jiu-Jitsu.
In December 2014 at RFC: Real 1, Gracie made his mixed martial arts debut against fellow South Korean wrestler Hyung Soo-Kim at a catch weight of 161 pounds (73 kg). 65 seconds into the first round, Gracie successfully applied an armbar to take the victory.
In December 2015, Gracie competed in the RizinFF World Tournament. He competed against Asen Yamamoto. In the first round, he submitted Yamamoto bout with a triangle.
Kron Gracie in 2015
In December 2016 at the Rizin FF Grand Prix: Final Round competition, Gracie took against MMA veteran Tatsuya Kawajiri. He won in the second round via RNC. With the win, he improved his professional MMA record to 4-0.
The UFC signed Kron Gracie in November 2018. In February 2019 at UFC on ESPN 1, Gracie made his promotional debut against Alex Caceres. He won the match via a RNC submission in the first round. Additionally, he won his first Performance of the Night award for this bout.
In October 2019, Gracie competed against Cub Swanson at UFC on ESPN+ 19. He was defeated by a unanimous decision in the bout.
Many fans were perplexed by Gracie’s choice to strike Swanson rather than submit him to the ground. Various Gracie family members, including his father Rickson and uncle Relson Gracie, have discussed his loss and criticized his choice to abstain from grappling.
Gracie made his comeback at UFC 288 on May 6, 2023. He competed against Charles Jourdain after a four-year absence. Gracie was defeated by a unanimous decision in the bout.
Gracie taught jiu-jitsu at his school in Culver City, California, while he wasn’t competing but in 2020 he relocated to Montana and spent a substantial amount of time secluded.
Gracie has admitted to the media that he agrees with the flat Earth idea.
