Marcelo Garcia will now be facing fellow grappling legend Masakazu Imanari at ONE 170 on January 24th, 2024. This will be Garcia’s first match for the promotion and his first match in over a decade, so it’s fitting that he takes on a fellow elite competitor from his own generation. Garcia announced his dramatic return from retirement just a month ago as he signed an exclusive contract with ONE Championship and although there was no news at the time of who he would be facing, fans were naturally thrilled to see him back in action at all. Now that his opponent has been confirmed, ONE Championship have done an excellent job of giving the fans exactly what they wanted.
Although Garcia has not had any grappling matches over the past 13 years, he’s had a much more important battle during that time. He announced in early 2023 that he was diagnosed with cancer and was undergoing treatment from that point onward, a revelation that made his return to the sport seem even more unlikely than it already did. He was able to share some positive news a few months later and although his treatment was successful, recovering from something as serious as that still takes quite a bit of time. That’s why the news of his return to competition just another few months later came as such a shock to the BJJ world.
Although Masakazu Imanari and Marcelo Garcia are of a similar age, Imanari has never stopped competing in both grappling and MMA. Imanari is actually 7 years older than Garcia but he won his most recent MMA fight earlier on this year and is still actively competing against the young generation of grappling experts that have come after him. Although Garcia had a much higher level of success in grappling during his career, Imanari was also a pioneer in one of the only areas that Garcia hasn’t shown mastery of during his time on the mats. It’ll be interesting to see how Garcia copes with Imanari’s leg attacks and more importantly, it’ll be amazing to see him back in action after all this time.
ONE Championship announced the news that Marcelo Garcia was facing Masakazu Imanari at ONE 170 in a recent post to their official Instagram account:
