3x World absolute champion Marcus Buchecha Almeida has anounced that his transition to MMA will happen sooner than many people expected.

Buchecha underwent surgery last August in Brazil for the knee injury that he sustained against Ricardo Evangelista during their 3rd round encounter at the Worlds back in May.

The surgery was to reconstruct the torn ACL ligament on his left knee. Buchecha’s doctor gave the champion a minimum of five months before coming back to 100% again.

Evangelista injured Buchecha as he went he went for a waiter sweep from half guard. Buchecha had to withdraw from the rest of the tournament.

Buchecha missed ADCC 2015 held in Sao Paulo in August.

He has won everything in BJJ: 6x world champion at black belt, ADCC 2013 champion, 3x World Pro champion. Buchecha wants to focus on MMA as soon as he gets better:

Buchecha told Combate:

“I always wanted to do it, I have always been curious about it, but I never rushed it. I always chased my goals in jiu-jitsu where I got 10 world titles, six of them as a blackbelt. Time goes by and after this injury in my knee I thought about many things, I don’t want to postpone it any further. As soon as I get better, I will start boxing, I’ve been thinking about this a lot.”

In a past interview, Marcus Almeida Buchecha, revealed that the lack of financial opportunities in BJJ opens doors for athletes move to MMA.

“The main federations of BJJ do not offer much prize money. We, professional athletes need that. “

Buchecha has been training with AKA and with UFC champions Daniel Cormier and Cain Velasquez. A move to MMA will be interesting for him as he has the style of aggressive BJJ that will translate well to MMA.