Highly decorated Brazilian jiu-jitsu sensation Marcus Almeida, arguably better known as “Buchecha,” faced the stiffest test of his young MMA career at ONE on Prime Video in Singapore on Friday.
Almeida, 3-0 in MMA to start the night (plus a Smaug-sized mountain of grappling gold medals), was paired up with Kirill Grishenko as part of the main card on Amazon Prime Video.
Grishenko, for his part, entered the fight off the first loss of his career, in an interim title bout with Anatoly Malykhin.
As decorated on the ground as he was, Almeida threw a couple of early strikes, with one falling just short of tagging Grishenko. But moments later, the Brazilian took the fight into his wheelhouse, and into a realm where Grishenko would have no escape, and no answer. Practically dragging his opponent to the mat, Almeida trapped a leg and soon had a heel hook in place.
Grishenko tried to roll through it and scramble out, but found no relief and was soon frantically tapping. With the win, Buchecha improved to 4-0, with all four of those wins coming inside the distance.
The Brazilian then opened up in his post-fight interview, saying the last three weeks had been the hardest of his life after losing one of his best friends, Leandro Lo, a fellow BJJ competitor shot by an off-duty policeman during an argument. “I was training and crying every single day. I don’t know how I did it,” Almeida stated.
Almeida also earned a $50,000 performance bonus for the win.
Official Result: Marcus Almeida def. Kirill Grishenko by submission (heel hook), Round 1, 1:04
