Marcus Almeida isn’t proud of how issues at the moment stand with ONE Championship.
Almeida, a jiu-jitsu legend who turned to MMA in 2021, is pissed off with the dearth of fights he’s been offered by the group since his final look – a showdown with Oumar Kane in August 2023. “Buchecha” makes his return Friday evening at ONE Championship 169 in Bangkok. He takes on Amir Aliakbari in a heavyweight bout.
Almeida shouldn’t be positive why it’s taken him 15 months to return to combating, and he’s not content material about it.
“No, I’ve been prepared because the final struggle,” Almeida informed MMA Junkie when requested about why he’s been inactive. “Sadly that’s less than me. That’s due to the group, as a result of I need to maintain lively, and I need to maintain combating, however I don’t know the explanation to it. That’s why I used to be out. It wasn’t as much as me.”
Almeida did have an lively begin to his MMA profession. He competed 4 occasions in 11 months below ONE Championship. He hoped the promotion would maintain a barely related tempo for him, as he’d wish to struggle not less than thrice a 12 months, however that hasn’t been the case.
“In jiu-jitsu, I used to compete quite a bit, so to be sitting out for 15 months, for me, it was horrible,” Almeida defined. “It’s a nasty expertise for my profession, and I’m not getting any youthful, however it’s what it’s.”
Almeida informed MMA Combating’s Guillerme Cruz in Portuguese that Friday’s bout would be the final on his present contract. It’s unknown if he’ll re-sign with the promotion.
As of now, Almeida has one factor to deal with, and that’s his bout in opposition to Aliakbari, which he’s taking very critically.
“We’ve like the same file in ONE Championship,” Almeida stated relating to Aliakbari. “In fact, he has a profession earlier than ONE, however he has 4 victories, I’ve 4 victories, and he has two loses, and I’ve one. So it’s just about just like what we did in ONE Championship. Like I stated, he fought Rizin and different occasions earlier than that, so in fact he has quite a lot of expertise with me in MMA. He’s a tricky opponent and has fought quite a lot of powerful guys. It’s going to be an excellent struggle, grappler vs. grappler, so it’s going to be actually attention-grabbing for the viewers.”
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