Marcus ‘Buchecha’ Almeida and Oumar ‘Reug Reug’ Kane have a very long history opposite one another, despite the fact that they’ve never actually met in the cage. Reug Reug was originally supposed to be the first man that Buchecha ever fought in professional MMA, as the pair were originally booked against one another all the way back in April, 2021 when Kane had a 2-0 record. That fight never came to fruition though, as Buchecha withdrew from it due to undisclosed reasons.
Reug Reug knocked out his replacement opponent and lost his fourth fight, while Buchecha made his debut successfully and followed that up with another impressive performance to move to 2-0. That’s when the matchmakers at ONE Championship decided that the time was right to book them against one another for the second time, in the hopes that it would work out this time. They were scheduled to fight one another in almost exactly a year later in April, 2022 but the bout was cancelled again and neither of them competed at the event.
Since then, both men have stayed at the top of the promotion’s heavyweight division by winning two fights. That brought Buchecha’s record to 4-0 with four first-round finishes, while Reug Reug is 5-1 with four finishes. The pair have now been scheduled to fight for the third time at a currently unnamed ONE Championship event on August 5th, 2023. The matchup has been hotly-anticipated every time that it’s been booked, but this time is even more tantalising than the others as the men are much further along in their careers. While there’s nothing official yet, it’s easy to see the winner here earning a title-shot or at least a title-eliminator in their next fight.
The news that Marcus ‘Buchecha’ Almeida and Oumar ‘Reug Reug’ Kane were scheduled to fight was originally announced by Combate in a post to their official Instagram account, although it appears to have been confirmed by Buchecha as he has shared the news on his official account too:
