Marcus ‘Buchecha’ Almeida on Not Training in Gi Recently: ‘I’m a Fighter’

Multiple-time Brazilian jiu-jitsu heavyweight champion Marcus Almeida (1-0, 1-0 One) extended his winning tradition by scoring a successful MMA debut. At One Championship “Revolution,” Almeida disposed of Anderson “Braddock” Silva with ease, tapping his opponent with a north-south choke at the 2:55 mark of the opening stanza. While MMA grappling and competitive jiu-jitsu are different worlds, Almeida confessed to feeling comfortable in his new discipline. “Buchecha” also stated that his gi is currently gathering dust in the wardrobe.

“I haven’t trained in a gi in a while,” he said. “I love to train with a gi, but I’m just focusing on no-gi right now, I’m training so much my grappling. I’m not feeling lost without the grips, I feel really confident. My no-gi has never been so good because I’ve never trained so much. Usually, I trained no-gi just for the competition. I was like, ‘ADCC is coming, OK.’ I take the gi off, trained for eight weeks, and fight the biggest no-gi grappling [practitioners] in the [best] no-gi tournament of the world. I trained like eight weeks, guys are training their whole life for that. I’m a gi fighter. I fight no-gi just because I like to test myself. Now that I’m fighting in MMA, it’s the same thing. I’m a fighter, I think that’s [what] fighting is about, testing myself in every aspect [of fighting], gi, no-gi, MMA. A real fight is about that.”

Almeida is scheduled to lock horns with Ji Won Kang at the upcoming One Championship “Winter Warriors.” In this interview, he discussed preparing for his next for, cornering Antonio Carlos Jr. at the recent PFL 2021 Championships event, and much more.

(00:00) Intro
(01:45) Cornering his friend and roommate Antonio Carlos Jr.
(04:34) His feelings before his MMA debut at One: Revolution
(05:58) What was going through his mind
(08:18) Choking out Silva
(09:45) Not training with the gi in a while
(11:14) Preparing for Kang
(15:20) Outro

Tudor Leonte started writing about mixed martial arts in 2013 for Italian media outlets. His journey with Sherdog began in 2018 and he now covers One Championship and countless European shows. You can follow him on Twitter @MrTudorLeonte.