Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu superstar Marcelo Garcia had a one-off affair in MMA competition.
It can be inarguable that Marcelo Garcia is the best Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner of all-time. With five Mundial championships and four ADCC titles under his belt, branding him as the Michael Jordan of the grappling world is not that far-off.
But probably unbeknownst to many of his followers, Marcelo laced a pair of four-ounce gloves at one point in his life. It was during the K-1 Heroes 2007 on October 28th in Seoul, where he faced Kim Dae Won at a 181-pound catchweight.
It was evidently expected for Marcelo to take the fight to mat, which he did within the opening minutes. But when the fight got back up to the feet in the second round, it became quite clear that he was also back in unfamiliar waters.
Marcelo ended up being cut above his eye with a knee strike, which subsequently resulted to the fight being stopped, and Kim awarded with the TKO victory.
Kim last fought in 2015, and lost via TKO to Japan’s Yusuke Sakashita, and has not fought since. As for Marcelo, he says an MMA return could be possible down the road, but has shifted back his sole focus on training and teaching jiu-jitsu at his New York City academy.
“You never know,” he said in a 2010 interview. “I’m very competitive. I said this before, I’m not the type of guy ends something with a loss. Maybe I want to compete to get back my win in MMA, and it was on a different weight (class) too.”
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