> ninth time in a row!

A 9th dan black belt is a rank: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dan_(rank)

It´s not the first time that someone got the 9th honorary black belt. It doesn't say anything about his knowledge about this martial art. And someone already commented that the n-th blackbelt is a ranking in e.g. taekwondo. For every belt you have to take a "test" and the n-th belt describes your knowledge. This honorary black belt is just a symbol from the World Taekwondo Federation and the person who receives such a belt should be a positiv representative. In the described situation the persone who received this belt isn´t anymore a positiv represenative so they canceled his status as suche one.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2017/07/1... "In recent years, Putin has received honorary martial arts awards, bestowed not so much in recognition of his actual skills as for his advocacy. In 2014, an international karate organization awarded him an eighth-degree black belt for his work promoting a form of full contact karate in Russia. The previous year, he was made a grandmaster of taekwondo by the World Taekwondo Federation after a visit to South Korea, even though he doesn’t practice the sport."

"Black belt Vladimir Putin was pictured getting thrown like a rag doll by judo student"

https://www.dailystar.co.uk/sport/putin-russia-ukraine-judo-...