“People don’t know that he’s one of the guys who have the biggest heart” - ‘Buchecha’ recalls his friendship with the late Leandro Lo

If there ever was someone who knew the late great Leandro Lo, it would have to be his close friend Marcus ‘Buchecha’ Almeida.

The two legendary Brazilian jiu-jitsu artists were the definitive grapplers of their era having competed against each other on the international circuit in the 2010s.

Despite being fierce competitors, the two martial artists have the closest of friendships and it was on full display during the IBJJF tournaments.

In the self-titled feature film about him, ‘Buchecha’ talked at great length about how much his friendship with Lo meant to him. A snippet of that movie was re-uploaded to FloGrappling’s YouTube channel following Lo’s death in Brazil.

Almeida revealed that he and Lo, an eight-time winner in the IBJJF World Championships, already knew each other when they were young but only formed a close bond in 2015 when he suffered a knee injury.

‘Buchecha’ said:

"We knew each other since we were blue belts in the old days but we never really got close, but when I blew up my knee that’s when something clicked and we became friends, really close. Leandro Lo is a crazy guy, a crazy competitor that everybody knows but people don’t know that he’s one of the guys who have the biggest heart.”

He added:

“2015 in Ibiza, he saw how hard it was for my knee to recover and I spent a lot of time with him and that’s when we became like brothers, like really good friends.”

Watch the full video below:

It was at the 2018 IBJJF World Championship when Almeida proved how much Lo meant to him. Lo injured his right shoulder during his super-heavyweight final match against Mahamed Aly, eventually losing in the gold-medal bout.

Lo, however, was given a consolation prize.

Almeida, who was already the ultra-heavyweight champion that year, decided to share the 2018 IBJJF absolute world title with his friend in a gesture seen as one of the most heart-warming moments in the sport.

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‘Buchecha’ honors Leandro Lo

Just as any other close friend would react, ‘Buchecha’ terribly grieved the death of Lo this past weekend.

Reports said that Lo got into an altercation with a Brazilian off-duty police officer who shot him, point-blank, in the head inside a nightclub.

The 17-time BJJ world champion took to Instagram to express his grief following his friend’s death.

“‘The proper function of man is to live, not to exist.’ We all know Leandro lived his life really well each second of it, you will be forever remembered, my brother. I love you! Rest in peace!”