Marcus Vinicius and Roberto Cyborg: the friends closed out the heavyweight division in New Jersey. Photo: Dan Rod.
At 21 years of age, Marcus Vinicius “Bochecha” is becoming more and more mature. Based in Jupiter, Florida, where he teaches at Armory team, the CheckMat black belt headed to New Jersey, where he came up spades at yet another tryout for the World Pro in Abu Dhabi. The next qualifier is coming up in San Diego, California.
For his results Bochecha earned a special article on him that will appear in the next issue of GRACIEMAG. To not miss out, subscribe to your favorite magazine by clicking here!
In the article the candidate to become a major star commented about how his win over Braga Neto helped him mature, addressed closing out with friend Cyborg and promised: “We’ll fight.”
Check it out:
When will you and Cyborg face off? Will you keep closing out until the 2011 Worlds?
No. We didn’t do the divisional final because win or lose he was going to take the ticket, since I had already won in Las Vegas. So felt it was best to save energy, but we agreed we’d fight in the absolute. But we didn’t even cross paths in the absolute, but for sure you’ll see us fight, down the road.
You seem to be getting more and more mature. How did you two wins over Braga Neto at the Las Vegas tryouts help you in that regard? What did you need to show to beat him?
Well, in the first one I was losing to Neto until halfway through the fight, and he was in a really good position on top. I think that what let me win there was staying calm, since I knew how to wait for the right moment and managed to explode and replace closed guard. Right there I knew I had two minutes to sweep or I’d lose. I managed to get to half-guard but he’s really good at defending half-guard. But I did a different variation and lapel swept him with a minute left in the match. I definitely feel the first match stood out for me more, Rocky Balboa style: getting beat the whole fight until the very end when I managed to turn things around. That certainly taught me a lot.
How is your training going?
I train every day in the morning with the whole team at the Armory, in Florida, with Rodrigo Cavaca, Chaves Cabeçudinho, Edson Junior, Luiz Cane, Eduardo Guedes, Gabriel Rollo. I do physical conditioning with our boss and trainer Joe Mullings. At night I train with my students. I feel the way I train changed after getting my black belt. Now I think a lot more and try a lot more positions, and I know the importance of knowing how to train, it’s not just going balls out the whole time in training.
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