Marcelo Garcia celebrates fifth World title, credits Steven Seagal - Tamete article

		06/06/2011 13:25
Report and photo by Eduardo Ferreira, directly from California Marcelo Garcia conquered World of Jiu-Jitsu’s title for the fifth time, yesterday, as he defeated Lucas Leite by points (2x0). Ruling the mediumweight division, the black belt athlete, who currently trains in New York, affirmed that the feeling of winning the fifth title is the same as the one he felt when he first won the gold medal, and joked about it. “I want to thank my team, my friends and Steven Seagal, who has taught me some of the moves I did in there”, said the athlete after his triumph. On a chat with TATAME, the tough guy explained the reason why he didn’t tried to fight the absolute, talked about his personal project and told us he wants he wants to fight ADCC, in September, in England. “ADCC is the most exciting competition because you have to wait two years for it. I’m super excited about this edition, because I’m waiting for four years and I want another win”, said. Is there some difference between your first world title and the fifth? It’s the same feeling you have. I like being here, training and being at the gym. I can’t do it and don’t fight, that would be pointless. The reflex of all the work we do is to come here and show what I’ve trained. Why didn’t you dispute the absolute title? It’s not that easy. I fight the absolute since I was 14, when I was a yellow belt and I lost to a purple belt, super heavy. The guy was monstrous and brags about it until these days. Since then I fight weight and absolute in all championships. I used to put much effort to fight these big guys and then fought on my weight division. I even fought injured, I don’t even have to tell you when it happened, but it was a big sacrifice to me. Today, my body can’t take it anymore. It’s hard to fight the absolute and then go dispute the weight title with someone who’s at his best, having to control your weight. It was it for me, and I didn’t get excited about it. Training at your own team made much difference to you? I guess it didn’t change much. Since I lived in Sao Paulo, when I trained at Alliance, I felt like there was not enough fighters, and I was teaching people. There was Fabio, Soluco to train, but they were fighting with a different belt on their waist, so I wasn’t used to train with black belts. I’ve always done my job independently whether the guys were better than me or not, that was never necessary in my trainings. Now, in New York, where I’ve taught the most, now I’ve completed a year and a half and I have better and better training every day. From now on, I hope it only gets better. Talk about the MGInAction Project… In Jiu-Jitsu, you have to do everything: teach, fight to promote the gym and show your Jiu-Jitsu to the world. This website is somewhere I can show my techniques, I show how I am, and it’s working. Instead of advertising about it, we decided to invest on athletes. We’ve invested ten thousand dollars so that the weibsite would  be done and so that everyone gets on the finals, and in case they won by points or advantages, they’d share the money with all guys who used MGInAction patches. That’s pretty much it. I hope it works. I’m getting some return out of it, so let’s do more. I want to have the chance to give more in case it’s a big hit. How will it be your prep for ADCC? ADCC is the most exciting competition because you have to wait two years for it. I’m super excited about this edition, because I’m waiting for four years and I want another win. I got the invitation, so I didn’t have to scarify myself on these qualifiers. Sheik Tahnoon is a guy that, with all the power he has, he still manages to find some time to dedicate himself to Jiu-Jitsu. We owe him a big time, since he did Abu Dhabi, the competition, and every time we go there.