Marcelo Garcia’s stunning return to active competition will be one of the highlights of ONE 170 on Friday, Jan. 24, and it will be a significant evening for the Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu great. The Bangkok crowd will be treated to the return of a true icon of martial arts.
But his road back for an openweight submission grappling match against Masakazu Imanari was not easy.
In 2023, Garcia was diagnosed with stomach cancer. It was understandably concerning news, but early detection was key to him beating it and getting to where he is today.
“I was like, ‘Alright, so now this is a whole new thing that I have no idea what’s going to happen.’ I was just trying to figure it out,” he admitted to ONE.
“Thank God, things started going more in my way to help me, and we found the cancer early.”
The diagnosis was daunting. Not just for Garcia, but for everyone he holds dear to his heart.
The BJJ superstar always kept his children at the center of his thoughts, which helped him push through the difficult times.
“It wasn’t a great thing fighting for my life. And when I say my life, I’m not just talking about myself. I’m talking about the life of my kids’ father. You know what I mean,” Garcia stated.
“I have to be their father, I need to stay here longer, and I need to try to give them the best chance to grow up like good people.”
The 42-year-old’s journey through treatment was a tough one. However, now that he’s on the other side of it, Garcia is finding that the recent past already seems distant, and he has already turned the page toward the future.
“It was not fun at all to go through the treatment. I ended up doing eight sessions of chemotherapy. The first four were really rough. The last four, not terrible. And in between those eight chemotherapy sessions, I ended up having a big surgery. That changed a lot of the dynamics inside my body, my stomach, my esophagus,” he remarked.
“And the crazy thing is how it’s just a year ago that I finished my treatment, but it feels like it’s been so long. I’m not gonna lie, I almost forgot everything. It’s just crazy how our bodies adapt. It’s just crazy how our mind forgets about things, too.”
As a true showing of his mettle and perservance, Garcia made the call to return to training after his treatment. Whether he would ever have the option to do so was never a done deal, though.
His doctor was not sure how treatment would go and never got his hopes up. But as his strength returned, the Brazilian veteran eased back into training and found he was ready to become his old self again.
“My doctor, she didn’t promise anything. She’s like, ‘I’ve never dealt with somebody that young that has your type of cancer, so I don’t know what you’re gonna be able to do.’ So I didn’t know if I was gonna be able to train,” Garcia detailed.
“For me, when I was able to go back to training, I started to feel like, ‘Oh, I think I can live with this. I feel like I can roll normal. I feel like I can teach. I feel like I can go upside down if I have to, and I wouldn’t feel the food going up my throat.”
“[My doctor] didn’t guarantee me anything. So when I was able to go back to training, I felt like, ‘Okay, I can work again. I can just be myself again.’ So that was the best feeling for me when I went back to training.”
His return to the mat wasn’t done selfishly or without a concrete motivation.
Garcia was fueled by a higher purpose and the aim to give his children the best lives he could.
“I know what makes me feel the best in my life – if I can give a better childhood to my kids. That’s my biggest wish. So when I trained again, I felt like, ‘Okay, now I can give a better life for my family because now I can work every day. Now I can do that thing that’s probably the best thing that I know how to do,” Garcia commented.
“When I was able to go back on the mat, I was just not thinking about myself, but I was just so happy to be able to make a living again with jiu-jitsu because it was hard to not be able to really work. That was really what beat me up every day.”
When looking forward to his first fight in ONE Championship, Garcia is hoping that his incredible journey inspires fans.
He wants to be a living showcase of what one can achieve when they find their true calling.
“We have to know what makes us feel good. When I say make us feel good, like, not momentarily, not make us feel good now, but in the long term, too. Pleasure makes us feel good now, but also, is it gonna make us feel even better later? So once we know that, we have to just put our mind on that,” Garcia said.
“We need to figure out what makes you happy, and just focus on that. But not what makes you happy now. I can eat a pint of ice cream. That would make me really happy now. But very soon after, I’m not gonna feel great after that. So I find what makes me feel the best, and I focus on that so much.”
ONE 170 airs live and free at 6:30 a.m. EST/3:30 a.m. PST from Bangkok, Thailand, on ONE’s Official YouTube Channel.