Marcus ‘Buchecha’ Almeida recently discussed the idea of making a comeback to gi competition, but fans might be disappointed to hear his thoughts on the topic. Buchecha is one of the greatest gi competitors that the sport has ever seen and he has the records to prove it, winning an incredible 13 gold medals at the IBJJF World Championship. It’s a huge achievement that will take a lot of work to beat, as anyone looking to do so would have to dominate the sport for somewhere close to a decade just like Buchecha did. Gabrieli Pessanha is the only grappler who looks anywhere close to beating it, and she still has at least 3 years to go if everything goes perfectly.
When asked about the idea of returning to the gi, Buchecha was clearly happy with what he has achieved:
“I think it was a closed chapter. I did what no one did.”
The last time he was seen competing in the IBJJF World Championship was all the way back in 2019, and he stopped competing in Jiu-Jitsu entirely later that year in order to focus on his MMA career. It’s gone very well too, as he now holds a 5-1 professional record after his most recent win over Amir Aliakbari at ONE 169. He went on to explain how he felt after winning his last titles in 2019:
“I wasn’t going to wake up to do a fight that I’ve been doing for so long. My first world championship was 2011, and the last one was 2019. I stayed there for 10 years practically at the top, dominating the category these 10 years.”
That’s when Marcus ‘Buchecha’ Almeida started looking for other ways to challenge himself outside of gi competition, and it makes sense that he wouldn’t be interested in a comeback today:
“In 2019, I still wanted to fight, but I realized that I wasn’t going after anyone anymore. I didn’t need to pass him, I didn’t need to pass Roger (Gracie), I didn’t need to pass (Bruno) Malfacine. I was fighting to be better than I was last year.”
Although fans might be disappointed to hear that Buchecha won’t be putting a gi back on again, there is a silver lining to all of this. He already announced that his last fight at ONE 169 was the last of his contract and that he wanted to enter free agency, opening up the opportunity for him to compete in other grappling events. That’s something that he actually plans on doing too, as he revealed that he wanted to return to no gi competition in an interview during ADCC 2026.
The full interview with Marcus ‘Buchecha’ Almeida where he discusses the idea of returning to gi competition was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of the Connect Cast Podcast:
