Buchecha and Leandro Lo: the open class final Cobrinha calls proof of friendship
Asked by VF Comunica about the Worlds that marked him most, the Hall of Famer picked a title that isn’t his: the 2018 open class, which Buchecha handed to his injured friend
The question was about his own titles. At the 2026 Worlds, at the Pyramid in Long Beach, VF Comunica asked Rubens “Cobrinha” Charles which Worlds had been the most special. He talked about his 2006 title and then brought up another memory on his own, from a final he wasn’t even in.
“One of the Worlds that marked me the most was Buchecha and Lo in the final,” he said.
The final that didn’t happen
Cobrinha was talking about the 2018 open class. Marcus “Buchecha” Almeida and Leandro Lo, friends and training partners, reached the final of the tournament’s most important division. Lo had hurt his shoulder along the way and was in no condition to fight.
Buchecha, who could have taken the gold, did the opposite. He asked for his friend’s arm to be raised. Lo left the Pyramid as the open class world champion, his only title in the open division.
Cobrinha recreated the scene. “Imagine you’re in an open class final and the guy hurts his shoulder. They’re friends, they trained together. And Buchecha comes and says, ‘No, here’s the deal, raise Lo’s hand.’ Imagine that, in an open class final,” he said.
“That, to me, is being a friend”
What made the story stick with the coach was the contrast with how easily the word gets used. “Today everybody talks about friendship,” he said. “A lot of people say, ‘He’s my friend.’ That, to me, is being a friend. It’s in the hard moments that you see who is with you.”
He closed with advice for anyone close to the champion. “Whoever has that guy as a friend can hold on to him like gold, because that guy is a friend,” he said.
Two Hall of Fame names
Buchecha holds the record for black belt world titles, with 13. Leandro Lo won eight, in five different weight classes. He died in 2022 and was inducted into the IBJJF Hall of Fame the following year.
Lo’s memory runs through the whole Worlds. In the same coverage, Vitor Freitas talked about him on arriving at the arena on a Friday, the day of the week the fighter turned into a catchphrase, “sextou” (roughly, “it’s Friday”). “You can’t say ‘sextou’ and not think of Leandro Lo. An icon of our sport. He had a unique way of fighting, a unique way of making the crowd happy,” he said.
Full video on YouTube
Cobrinha’s comments are in the vlog from day two of the 2026 Worlds, on the VF Comunica YouTube channel (in Portuguese).
Would you give up a world title for a friend? Leave your opinion in the comments.
