Marcus ‘Buchecha’ Almeida has just moved even further forward with his professional MMA career and now holds a perfect 3-0 record after steamrolling Simon Carson at ONE 158. The most successful IBJJF competitor in the history of grappling has gone from strength to strength since making the transition to MMA and in a very short space of time he has established himself as the most exciting prospects in the ONE Championship Heavyweight division. The Asian combat sports promotion does not have the same kind of depth to their divisions that the UFC of course, but Buchecha is still well on his way to earning a title-shot in the near future.
Buchecha has now finished all three of his opponents in devastating fashion and none of them have even managed to make it out of the first round against him. In fact his longest fight to date has been his professional debut against Anderson Silva, where his opponent was still unable to make it into the third minute before being submitted by him. Owing to the fact that he took very little damage in his debut, he was able to make a return to the ONE Championship cage in very short order and took his second fight less than three months later.
In his second fight, Buchecha took on undefeated Heavyweight striker Kang Ji Won and managed to finish this fight even quicker than his first. He was then scheduled to have his long-awaited fight with the terrifying grappler Oumar ‘Reug Reug’ Kane, but unfortunately he withdrew from the fight and Marcus ‘Buchecha’ Almeida had to be given a new opponent and a new date to fight at ONE 158. 2-1 Australian fighter Simon Carson, representing Absolute MMA, stepped up on short notice but he was unable to stop the wrecking ball that is Buchecha.
Buchecha once again improved upon his previous performance as he was able to get the finish even quicker again, putting away Carson after just 2 minutes and 24 seconds of action. He rushed out of the gate once again and overwhelmed Carson, securing the takedown very quickly. Once he got his opponent to the ground, the outcome was basically a foregone conclusion. Buchecha passed to mount and began raining down heavy punches, forcing the referee to stop the fight and earning him his first win by TKO.
The full ONE 158 event replay, including Marcus ‘Buchecha’ Almeida v Simon Carson is available to watch on the official ONE Championship YouTube Channel, click here to watch.