Marcelo Garcia, The ADCC GOAT (Greatest of All Times)

Marcelo Garcia, also known as Marcelinho, is a fourth-degree Black Belt under Master Fabio Gurgel. He is four times ADCC Champion and five times World Champion. He is among the Best Grapplers of all time. He is now running his own academy in New York and producing BJJ champions.  

Garcia was fond of action movies. He liked movies like The Karate Kid and Enter the Dragon and action artists like Chuck Norris and Bruce Lee. These movies grabbed the attention of little Garcia toward martial arts. Marcelo lived in a small town in Brazil BJJ was not famous. BJJ was famous in the big cities of Brazil.    

He joined Karate school in this small town at the age of 8. He also did Japanese Jiu-Jitsu along with Karate. Marcelo learned Karate with sheer motivation and attention. He appeared in various local Karate tournaments. These Tournaments raised his confidence.     

After training for four years in Karate and Japanese Jiu-Jitsu, Marcelo realized that the toughness of Karate is not suitable for him. He thought that these rigid and tough movements of Judo are not effective in self-defense. Besides his immense struggles in Karate, Marcelo left Karate.  

After one year of leaving Karate training, Marcelo was invited to a Judo class by his friend. Marcelo did not like Judo at first. His prior point of view was that a grappler cannot overcome a striker.

When his friend continuously insisted, Marcelo decided to give it a try. He joined the Judo session. He started training under Fabiano de Souza. Marcelo liked the aggressiveness of Judo. 

Marcelo was a very dedicated and favorite student of Fabiano de Souza. He was always on the mat learning something new and never missed any class. Marcelo loved Judo training and started appearing in local tournaments. His winning streaks raised his confidence and his love for Judo. 

Marcelo noticed that his instructor was taking Jiu-Jitsu sessions under Rickson Gracie in Divinopolis. BJJ is something unfamiliar and new to Marcelo. Marcelo also decided to follow in the footsteps of his instructor and joined BJJ sessions.

He asked his instructor and after permission joined the Jiu-Jitsu session in another city near his town named Divinopolis. At the start, he used to train three times a week.

At the start, his interest in Jiu-Jitsu was basically due to the efficiency of Judo. But with time, his interests diverted towards Jiu-Jitsu. He regularly started visiting Iran Brasileiro Academy three times a week to train in Jiu-Jitsu.

Marcelo tried his luck in an international tournament. He did not execute his game as planned and lost in his first match. But this defeat could not stop him from the training and he decided to give it another try. He started studying BJJ techniques in various BJJ magazines and practiced them with his partners. 

Marcelo heard about an academy named Gracie Barra in the Ribeirão Preto. This academy was in his state Sao Paulo but Ribeirao is very far from his hometown. But this distance did not alienate him from his first love, Gracie Barra.

In Gracie barra, he saw new styles and techniques of BJJ like spider guard and half guard. These are the techniques he did not know before. He realized that he can never become a big BJJ grappler in Divinopolis. 

Before he decided to join any BJJ academy, he met with Paulo Rezende in a state tournament who invited Marcelo to join his BJJ academy. Rezende offered to join his academy in Poco de Caldas. He offered Marcelo training without any charges and a place to sleep in the gym.

In return, Marcelo had to work as an errand boy and had to do small chores. Marcelo found it a big opportunity and accepted his offer. At the age of 16, Marcelo traveled 10 hours away from his house with the permission of his parents and joined Paulo’s academy.  

Paulo’s gym is now Marcelo’s second home. He trained four times a day. His first session started at 6 am. Then he did the second session at 8 am. His third session was 3 pm and his fourth session was at 7 pm.

Marcelo took great advantage of this opportunity. Judo's background also helped him to improve in BJJ. in the next few years he started fighting in the junior division. 

When Marcelo competed in the junior division, his coach enrolled him in the adult absolute division tournament. This was a big challenge for Marcelo but he accepted this challenge. He fought that tournament very professionally and reached the final.

It was the time when there was no scoring system and time limit in IBJJF rules. This was a great victory for Marcelo which helped him to shoot up his confidence level.  

Marcelo faced various financial problems at the start of his journey. His dedication to BJJ always kept him traveling from one place to another and hustling to take part in big tournaments. Once Marcelo traveled to Rio de Janeiro but unfortunately failed to enter due to an entrance fee problem.

Marcelo met with his future wife, Tatiana in the BJJ tournament where he did not have money to pay the entrance fee. Tatiana is a BJJ Black Belt and at the time of their first encounter belonged to the management of that organization. She convinced his fellows to allow Marcelo to compete.

After winning that tournament, both got into a relationship and later, married. Tatiana also supported Marcelo in his career after that event. She is the one who convinced him to move to Sao Paulo and continue BJJ.  

After winning the state championship and the World Championship, Marcelo built trust in and gained the most needed confidence. Tatiana convinced Marcelo that he should go to Sao Paulo to make success in his BJJ career. He should work for a bigger team.

Marcelowas invited by Fernando Augusto’s “Terere” academy to work as an assistant coach. Marcelo took this opportunity to go to Sao Paulo and joined the world famous BJJ institute as an assistant coach. 

During his stay in Terere, Marcelo was invited by Master Fabio Gurgel to join Alliance headquarters as an assistant coach. Due to financial problems faced during his stay in Terere, Marcelo accepted the General’s invitation at first and joined Alliance as an assistant coach.

He partnered with Fabio Gurgel. This was the time when Marcelo gained financial stability. Master Fabio Gurgel was a famous instructor even at that time so Marcelo availed of his skills and learned a lot. Master Fabio Gurgel was the coach who promoted him to Black Belt.  

Marcelo Garcia is a very kind and humble person. He earned the name and honor of his students not just due to his BJJ skills and teaching style but also due to his kind, meek, communicative, and understanding personality.

He is not just an experienced and nice person to his gym but also very loving to his family. He was also very kind and living to his parents. He upgraded his father’s 1984s Volkswagen with a 2000 Ford Focus with his earnings from the competitions.  

Marcelo tried to accept new challenges and joined Florida MMA academy to train in MMA. But he lost his first match due to a cut near his eye in the first round and the doctor stopped the fight. This was the first and last match of his MMA career.

In march 2010, he announced that he will not participate in MMA anymore and wanted to focus on his students and academy. He returned back to BJJ with his full devotion.

While serving at Alliance as an assistant coach, Marcelo was promoted to Black Belt by Fabio Gurgel in 2002.

Marcelo Garcia is four times World champion. Once in ADCC trials when he lost his final with 1 point against Daniel Moraes, he was not selected for ADCC Championship according to ADCC rules, he was invited as a replacement for another fighter Denis Hallman. He won the ADCC Championship by defeating Renzo Gracie and Vitor Ribeiro.

After Roger Gracie was first, and Andre Galvao was second, Marcelo Garcia is the third person who is honored to be inducted into the ADCC Hall of Fame.

Marcelo Garcia is the only competitor who won the 66-76 Kg division 4 times. He defeated various big names in ADCC matches like Kron Gracie and Ricco Rodriguez and was inducted into the ADCC Hall of Fame.

Marcelo Garcia launched his own academy in New York and kept his focus on his academy and students. His academy is considered one of the most renowned academies in New York.

To facilitate students away from New York, Marcelo Garcia also gave online sessions and also made instructional videos on different websites.  

Various big names in MMA are produced under Marcelo Garcia. His first two Black Belts are Josh Waitzkin and Alexandre Meadows. Other top Black Belts include Bernardo Faria, Matheus Dinis, Gianni Grippo, Dillon Danis, and Marcus Tinoco.  

In various international tournaments, Marcelo performed as a killer giant and defeated various big names. He used the butterfly guard as a base and changed it into the open guard with his dynamic skills. X guard and single leg X guard are used by Marcelo as secondary guards to apply butterfly guard.

Marcelo also had a variety of submission attacks in his BJJ history. He is well known for various Chokes, Guillotine, RNC, and North-South chokes. Marcelo is also famous for arm drag which is basically a wrestling technique. His Judo and Karate background shaped his skills beyond limits. 

In ADCC 2011, Garcia faced Victor Estima in the Quater final. ADCC 2011 was the last tournament of Marcelo Garcia who retired from BJJ to focus on his academy. This was one of its historic matches for Garcia. Victor tried to take down Garcia but Gacia countered by applying Guillotin and submitted Victor within one minute.

Marcelo Garcia faced Leo Vieira in the final of ADCC 2011. This was also the last match of Marcelo Garcia’s BJJ career.

Marcelo took down Leo from the start of the match. During the whole match, Leo tried his best to escape. But Marcelo did not let him escape. Marcelo tried to strangle his head from the front and applied a triangle choke. At the end of the match, Marcelo submitted Leo with this triangle choke.

In this fight, Marcelo Garcia was against Rolles Gracie in ADCC 2007. Rolles Gracie took down Marcelo Garcia and scored two points.

He mounted Garcia with full force and applied pressure with his full weight. Garcia tried his best in the match to escape. He applied full guard and single leg X guard. But Gracie did not allow him to escape.   

At the end of the match, Garcia applied an Armbar to Rolls, and resultantly Rolls was in need of medical assistance. Marcelo Garci was announced as the winner of the match.

Marcelo Garcia VS Lucas Leite / World Championship 2009

Marcelo Garcia vs Alexandre Cacareco Ferreira ADCC 2007 Absolute Match BJJ VS Luta Livre

Marcelo Garcia VS Tiago Alves / World Championship 2009

Marcelo Garcia vs Leo Vieira - ADCC 2011

Photo Credit: @marcelogarciajiujitsu & bjj.bg