Andre Galvao has now finally revealed the promotion that he has signed with in order to make his return to professional MMA competition, and it’s Asia’s biggest show, ONE FC. This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise to BJJ or MMA fans as the chairman of ONE FC, Chatri Sityodtong, has a habit of signing elite grapplers and highly-decorated BJJ competitors. While Galvao is certainly one of the biggest stars that the promotion has ever managed to convince to put pen to paper, they’ve already featured the MMA debut of the most successful IBJJF world champion, Marcus ‘Buchecha’ Almeida.
Not just that but there’s also some precedent for signing the six-time ADCC world champion, as two-time ADCC world champion Yuri Simoes also made his MMA debut in the ONE FC cage. To date Simoes and Buchecha have only had a single fight for the promotion, although Buchecha has started making arrangements to improve on his 1-0 professional record. This isn’t just a recent trend either as ONE FC also gave one of John Danaher’s most successful students, Garry Tonon, his professional MMA debut.
Since then Tonon has developed his striking massively, using this along with his elite grappling skills to fight his way to a perfect 6-0 record and earn a chance to challenge Featherweight world champion Thanh Le for the belt. When Andre Galvao makes his debut for ONE FC, he will not be as new to the sport as many of his peers however as he has already amassed a 5-2 professional record before retiring from the sport over a decade ago.
Andre Galvao announced his signing to the ONE FC roster in a recent post to his official Instagram account, giving a lengthy explanation in both English and Portuguese. This comes just a matter of days after he first announced his return to professional MMA, when he was originally quite mysterious about the specific promotion he was signing for.
