Roger Gracie recently sat down to discuss the legendary match he had with Marcus ‘Buchecha’ Almeida back in 2017, where he made a comeback after taking a lengthy break from competing in the sport. In fact, Gracie had largely retired from BJJ competition in 2010 after he once again won gold medals in both the super-heavyweight and the absolute division at that year’s IBJJF world championship. He had already dominated the sport for years at that point and won everything there was to win, so Roger started to focus on competing in professional MMA instead.
After spending two years devoting all of his time to working his way up the rankings in Strikeforce, Roger Gracie made a comeback to BJJ competition to face the man who had taken over his mantle as the best competitor around, Marcus ‘Buchecha’ Almeida. The pair met at the first ever Metamoris event and fought to a draw, entertaining the fans but not providing a concrete answer to the question of who was the better grappler. Buchecha returned to dominating the rest of the BJJ world and Roger returned to MMA, aside from a single grappling match in 2015.
Then the unbelievable happened and Roger returned to grappling once again in 2017, ready to settle the score against Buchecha once and for all. The pair battled it out over the course of almost 7 minutes but this time Roger was able to provide the conclusive ending that the fans were looking for as he submitted Buchecha with a gi choke. That was when Roger rode off into the sunset and never returned to compete any form of combat sports, either grappling or MMA. It was the final time that fans ever got to see him on the mats in competition and he spent it reminding everyone exactly why he is seen as the greatest BJJ competitor in the history of the sport.
The full video of Roger Gracie breaking down his legendary comeback match against Marcus ‘Buchecha’ Almeida in 2017 was uploaded to the official YouTube channel of FloGrappling:
