BJJ legend Marcus ‘Buchecha’ Almeida has just been signed to the UFC and he will be making his promotional debut against Martin Buday at UFC on ABC 9 on July 26th, 2025. Rumours have been circling for quite some time now that the UFC was interested in signing Buchecha and it appears as though they got what they wanted. Obviously it’s tough for any promotion to compete with the UFC when vying for top talent but this particular signing would have been even more difficult to pry away from them. Buchecha was one of the biggest names testing the waters of free agency right now, and he would be a huge boost for any promotion’s heavyweight roster.
He has won more IBJJF World Championship titles than anyone else in history at 13 and he cemented his legacy as one of the best to ever set foot on the mats several years ago. There was a lot of buzz around his MMA debut back in 2021 and a big part of that came from the fact that elite grappling is vanishingly rare in the heavyweight division. He quickly became a star at ONE Championship and kicked his career off with four first-round finishes against progressively tougher opposition. He was then knocked off the path to glory in 2023 when he suffered the first loss of his career to Oumar ‘Reug Reug’ Kane.
Buchecha made the decision to take time away and develop his skills after that loss, determined to come back better than ever. He did exactly that and registered another first-round finish against top contender Amir Aliakbari, but that was the last fight of his ONE Championship contract. He intentionally let his contract lapse and bet on himself by becoming a free agent, a move that has proven to be the right choice. It’s given Buchecha the opportunity to find a much wider audience with the UFC, and the path to becoming the best in the world at a second sport.
The UFC have wasted no time in finding an opponent for Marcus ‘Buchecha’ Almeida to make his debut against, but they haven’t given him an easy fight in Martin Buday. It’s very rare for fighters to be given ranked opponents in their first UFC fight, but that’s exactly what’s happened go Buchecha. Buday is currently ranked at 13th in the UFC heavyweight division and he holds an impressive 6-1 UFC record, while being 15-2 overall in MMA. It’s a huge challenge for Buchecha but it comes with obvious rewards too, as a win over Buday would propel him into the rankings immediately and his next fight would likely be against a top-ten opponent.
MMAJunkie announced the news that Marcus ‘Buchecha’ Almeida was going to make his UFC debut against Martin Buday in a recent post to their official Instagram account:
