Marcus “Buchecha” Almeida is the most successful IBJJF grappler in history with an incredible thirteen World Championship titles to his name and his MMA debut has been in the works for some time now. It’s been a difficult road for the elite grappler up until now as he’s hit numerous stumbling blocks in his journey to transition from the mats to the cage. The first of these came after the first potential opponent for his MMA debut was announced, when Buchecha suffered a knee injury in training that forced him to withdraw from not only that, but also a future grappling match as well.
After that, his debut only got that little bit more exciting as he was matched up against an undefeated Senagelese wrestling champion with phenomenal power in Oumar “Reug Reug” Kane. He managed to make it even closer to fight night this time, but sadly he suffered yet another unfortunate turn of events and was once again injured in training. Kane went on to fight against a veteran striker in Alain Ngalani instead and ended up winning that fight with devastating ground and pound in the very first round.
Now, he’s had his debut rebooked again, this time against another undefeated MMA fighter. Buchecha will fight Ji Won Kang on April 7th, a Korean fighter who holds a professional record of 4-0 and most recently won his ONE FC debut in February to make his fourth straight first-round knockout win. It won’t be long before this comes around and thankfully, as recently as a week ago Buchecha posted on his official Instagram account that he was in training and injury-free.
