What is it that you are loving most about MMA? The way that I was using the jiujitsu (post injury) is what I am trying to apply to MMA because I want to use the pressure. You don’t wanna get exposed and get really hurt so I think the mindset kinda helped for this. Learning not to expose yourself so much must be an important lesson for helping your career in MMA? I think 2016 was the year I won almost every fight by submission from an armbar.
#ITRAIN HOCKEY HOW TO#
I learned how to use my bodyweight so much better, and that’s when my passing and my pressure game started getting better, and I started arm-barring everyone (laughs). So after the surgery I played a much safer game to protect my knee, but on the other hand I was matching everyone because I was controlling so much. Before the surgery I used to go forward, like to attack so much with leg locks and foot locks, but every time that you attack somebody’s foot, you kinda expose your foot. Courtesy of ONE Championshipĭid the injury force you to learn how to become a more defensive fighter? Now, when I’m training, I don’t even think about it anymore. Of course, I wouldn’t be confident to kick with my left leg (in MMA) right away after the surgery, so staying in Jiu-Jitsu gave me the confidence back that I needed. After the injury, it changes the person, the athlete, everything because it made me look at everything with a different point of view. Oh yeah, totally, because the injury changed me so much. In 2020, I felt that my mission was done in the Jiu-Jitsu sport and competition, so I don’t have anything else to prove and it’s time to move on, it’s time to go to MMA because I always wanted to, and here we are.ĭo you think that you continued with BJJ so that you could gauge how the knee injury was healing, and did the process actually help to make you a better fighter? Then one more year, and one more year, until 2019, so that’s when I ended up breaking all the records and becoming the biggest champion (of the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu championship). I came back, I fought, in 2016 I won but I wasn’t so dominant, you know what? I can squeeze in one more year. So, then all my plans changed because of the surgery and in my head, I had to come back and fight jiujitsu again because leaving the arena like that wasn’t the last memory that I wanted to have in Jiu-Jitsu. Yeah, 2015 was when I was planning to fight my last (Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu) championship, but unfortunately I got hurt and I tore my left knee, and I had to surgery and that took me a year to come back. You first started talking about making the transition to MMA in 2015, but it was 2021 when you finally debuted with ONE Championship. I’m going into my fourth fight and got the job done on the previous fight (against Simon Carson), so I am really comfortable right now in the new sport.
Courtesy of ONE ChampionshipĬongratulations with how things have been going at ONE. Marcus Almeida sat down with M&F to discuss the injury that delayed his MMA debut, how it made him a better fighter in the long run, and why he’s enjoying life in a new sport. Having dominated BJJ for over a decade, the 32-year-old signed with ONE Championship in 2020 to begin his MMA career, and will be looking to improve on his already impressive 3-0-0 record when he faces Kirill Grishenko (5-1-0) during the promotion’s highly anticipated return to Amazon Prime Video. Marcus Almeida is a 17-time Brazilian jiujitsu world champion and with six of those titles achieved in the open-weight category, “Buchecha” (meaning “cheek”) is an undoubtedly record-holding icon of the sport.
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