JITENDRE KHARE : ENTER FIGHT FEST

Malaysia has only a population of more than 31 million. But we are very fortunate that there are many local MMA promotions that are active in organising MMA fights. Names like the pioneering Ultimate Beatdown of Johor, Warriors FC ( now with new management is known as Golden Warriors FC ) up north in Penang and in East Malaysia, we have Jesselton Fight League, Fight Fest and B.A.C and most recently Rampage FC; and of course we cannot talk about MMA without mentioning about MIMMA, considered the best and biggest amateur tournament in Asia, which is currently in it's 5th season

In these local promotions, there is a team that has made their presence felt. This team is TEAM RELENTLESS from India. Why would an Indian team come all the way from Mumbai to Malaysia to compete? For a country as huge as India with population that is over 1.3 billion people, MMA promotions there are still developing. 

Cricket is the number one sports watched in India. Traditional martial arts such as Karate, wrestling and boxing are widely followed too. MMA is relatively new. It only recently caught on from the popularity of UFC. Several Indian promotions has emerged there such as Super Fight League, Full Contact Championship and most recently Yoddha Fighting Championship.

TEAM RELENTLESS is lead by Jitendre Khare or more fondly known as Vicky. Jitendre has trained his fighters well and they have grown and develop through the fight scene in Malaysia.

Chaitanya winning the UB 17 featherweight title

Chaitanya Gavali training with Team Relentless, fought before in Borneo Fighting Championship in 2014. a year later he fought in Ultimate Beatdown 17 to win the featherweight title belt and then one month later achieved another victory in winning the Warriors FC featherweight title.

Anil Mehta defeated a couple of local emerging talent in STAND Kickboxing in Kota Kinabalu and last year in a Super-Fight 65kg Kickboxing match became the title champion.

with Anil Mehta with his Fight Fest K1 Title Belt

Yadwinder Singh whom recently fought at WSOF Global Championship last year , tasted multiple victory in Borneo FC, Ultimate Beatdown and Warriors FC.

Ex ONE Championship fighter, Susovan Ghosh, the co-founder of Team Relentless was also an alumni of Ultimate Beatdown. 

Young fighter Rudransh Azad, spend his formative amateur career in Malaysia, collecting wins in Jesselton Fight League 2, Ultimate Beatdown 23. He then went on to win Yodhha FC Lightweight belt in April this year. Then in Sept he was back in Malaysia, collecting another win in Golden Warriors FC. 

In that same event his team mate Navdeep Aggarwal the Yodhha FC flyweight champion defeated Seah Zhang Yu, cosidered the best flyweight in Malaysia.

with Navdeep (L) & Rudransh (R) with their victory souvenir from Golden Warriors FC

In this weekend FIGHT FEST IV: ART OF COMBAT (7-8 Oct 2017), Jitendre will be here in Kota Kinabalu with Susovan Ghosh to compete in grappling. Jitendre himself is aiming for the Fight Fest Mata Leao title belt, which will be given to the winner of the absolute blue / purple belt category.

Jitendre aiming to win the 1st Fight Fest Mata Leao belt

On his grappling experience,

"I have competed and won at 3 Bangkok Opens, won a Gold at WPJJC Trials in HK in 2012, represented India at Asian Beach Games where I couldn't fight my Bronze medal match after injuring my shoulders in the semis.

Jitendre started in martial arts journey since he was a boy in school. Karate was very popular in school and he took it up and reached the level of Brown Belt. He also took lesson in boxing and kickboxing as it was part of the school's curriculum. 

After graduating from high school, he dabbled into mud wrestling. At one point of time he switched his interest to power-lifting but unfortunately an injury made him stop and he began to train in martial arts again as rehab to develop better flexibility.

Watching PRIDE was the spark for Jitendre to go into MMA. Doing his research, he eventually took up Judo and under the guidance of India's top Judoka Ashok Chaudary Jitendre began to develop a keen interest in the grappling arts.

"I was fortunate enough that he agreed to accept me as his student and under his tutelage I got to represent my State at the Senior National Judo Championships in 2010."

Through his martial arts journey, Jitendre discover that Mumbai lacks a legit MMA gym, so in 2010 Jitendre started his own MMA gym.

"The knowledge and access to quality trainers was very limited at that point but I guess the eagerness to learn and grow was what got us to this point. We were also lucky to be joined by Coach Nick Kilstein, NCAA Division 1 wrestler alongside whom I had the privilege of training Team Relentless and also learning wrestling from. His contribution to not just the team but to growth of MMA in India is simply irreplaceable. My Head Coach Darren DaSilva has been a huge influence in my martial arts journey and has been my mentor and like an elder brother to me. 

I received my Blue Belt from him in 2013 and then had the privilege of training with some brilliant BJJ coaches such as Prof Shane Suzuki, Thomas Fan, Carlos Almeida and Marcio Cesar.

with Mario Cesar

Darren sir has been helping and guiding me since 2012. He has been my Head Coach. Till date he hasn't charged us a single penny to train us. I guess it's an affiliation of trust and respect."

at Fight G Singapore

The fight team of Team Relentless is base in Evolution Gym, which Jitendre is part owner. It is highly regarded as the home of MMA in India and the pioneer in the sports in India.

with his Team Relentless at Evolution Gym

From time to time Jitendre would travel to Singapore to train at Fight G MMA Academy to train under Coach Darren DaSilva. He also made regular trips to train at AKA Thailand under Marcio Cesar.

Realising that there's a huge talent pool in India for MMA, but what lacking is a grassroot program that can unearth these talents, then progress to develop and grow them, Jitendre together with Vicky Tulsani, Susovan Ghosh and Khriemelie Metha founded Yoddha FC in 2014.

fights at Yoddha FC

They wanted to use Yoddha as a platform to produce more MMA fighters from India. Yodhha is still developing as an amateur league promotions, hence Jitendre consider himself still have a lot to learn and has been sending Team Relentless fighters to Malaysia, Thailand, Philipines and recently to the middle east to not only gain valuable fight experience but also to learn the fine aspect of organizing fight events. 

Yoddha FC entering it's second season in Cctober

The passion for MMA and the grappling arts is what drive him and his team. Their dream is to grow the sports of MMA in India, to put an Indian MMA athlete in UFC and to have the very first home grown BJJ blackbelt in India.

Come and watch Jitendre and his team mate Susovan compete in Fight Fest IV tomorrow at Centre Point Sabah, 4th Floor Palm Square.

with Susovan

YOUNG GUNS Blasting at Fight Fest SIDMA K1 Results

4-5 FEB 2017, Fight Fest colloborated with SIDMA College to organised a K1 Kickboxing Championship focusing on fighters with less than 7 fights. This is to unearth new talents in the fields of Kickboxing.

Read more about Young Guns here ( click below for pre-event coverage )

http://warriorsofborneo.blogspot.my/2017/02/fight-fest-to-open-2017-fight-calender.html

Below is the full results:

Organising chairman Johan Julian of Kinabalu Fighters wants to thank all the fighters and their team that has participated and cooperate well in terms of timing to ensure the championship went smooth.

On ground was Coach Alvin Chong of Borneo Combat Gym Labuan , whom is the ISKA Borneo representative. Alvin was on the look out for potential fighters that stand out to rope them in for the National K1 Championship.

Cruz Fitness team

Cruz Fitness fighter - Isaac Yong, won two of his match via spinning back fist KO, but lost in the finals of the 65kg.

Naziman of Keningau MMA , relishing his victory in a hard earned victory over Isaac for the 65kg category

Warmonger from Miri taking home 1 Gold and 1 silver

Mohd Rayyan leading the debut of his new team Black Mamba

Coach Mohd B. Bakri of Keningau MMA with his fight team

Kinabalu Fighters proud to have Brandon Chong back to fight after some time off to continue his studies

Brandon Chong with his Coach Randal Kadayum. Brandon won the 65-70kg category via KO in the 1st round

The promising talents of young guns from Team Karabaw

Cynnie of Rhino fought an excitingly close final match vs Liyana of Keningau MMA. Split decision win to Liyana

STAND 3: Kickin' it at Keningau

STAND is back with Kickboxing action to entertain us this weekend 26-27 Nov 2016, in the interior town of Keningau Sabah. This time it's for series 3 and it's held in conjunction with The Crocker Range Festival (TCRF ).

Started on 24 Nov, TCRF is a festival with plethora of events and activities such as Fitness Concert, Local Artist performance, Ms Crocker Range, Arm Wrestling, Fun Run and a whole lot more. And Kickboxing and boxing will be part of this fun and action packed festival.

STAND has established itself as a Kickboxing events that tie in with family carnival. Started with the 1st series at Nexus Karambunai Resort in April this year, erecting a boxing ring next to the beautiful beach of Karambunai, with few food & drinks stalls surrounding it really gives this fight event a different feel, a relax atmosphere that fighters can fight, and their supporters and family and chill out enjoying the cool breeze from the sea.

STAND Series 1

The series 2 continued this concept where STAND was part of the beach festival in Siok Bah Karnival in September, at Tg.Lipat Beach which gives good exposure to K1 Kickboxing to wider audience and a good platform for newcomer to gain experience.

Series 2

As part of a WSOF affiliated event , the organiser, TEAM KARABAW has announced a full calender for 2017 which will see 3 tournament held in April, June and September, which will lead to the year end closing of a Super series at November.

Keningau is around 109 Km away from Kota Kinabalu and takes 1.5 hour car ride via the Kimanis route which is steep but very scenic mountainous road that traverse through Sabah's back bone; the Crocker Range.

Although it's a distance away but as the founder of STAND, Sensei Rayner Kinsiong has a close affinity to Keningau; as this is his home town. He always wanted to do something for his home town. So bringing a home grown and internationally affiliated martial arts event is really the best thing to do.

Aside from being the only Kickboxing promotions affiliated to WSOF, STAND is also a ISKA sanction event. ISKA representative of Borneo, Alving Chong will be present to guide the officials.

STAND 3 highlight will be the Super 8 70kg title fight. The fighter to watch out for is Anil Mehta from Team Relentless India. Sabah has been a successful place for Anil, with him winning the STAND series 2 Light Welterweigh title in September. He again was victorious in Fight Fest 3, winning the ISKA K1 Fight Fest 65kg title belt in October. Now for the 3rd month in a row, he is back in Sabah for fight. Will he win again for third time?

Anil's is expected to win his first fight against Lu Yi Ran of D-30. Lu may lack the experience compare to Anil, but what he lacks there he make it up with a never say die attitude.

Nidal Mahmood from Sampuri Gym will also be a fighter to watch in this Super 8. He won in STAND series 1 and is back with high intention to bring the belt back to Kuala Lumpur. Nidal is a muay thai specialist and will be capitalizing his long reach to score against Ronoldo Liew of Borneo Tiger MMA. Liew is no slouch, he has very heavy hands and may give Nidal trouble if he close the distance and connect in the pocket.

Another prospect is Mohd Eswandy from Gymbox, Kuching. Another muaythai specialist, Eswandy also dabbled in MMA and did well in reaching MIMMA 4 Semi-finals this year fighting at lightweight.

Eswandy will face Ronnie of Naga Kinabalu in the prelim.

For female showdown the high light will be the K1 Super Fight at 52kg between Shaznieffah of Team Karabaw vs Ainah of Team Revolution. Judging from pass female fights, usually they give their all out and sometimes are more relentless than their male counterparts. So with this fight promises plenty of fireworks!

According to Kaza Musa who arranges the fight card for STAND, 22 team has registered, with 80 fighters confirmed for showdown. 70 participating in amatuer K1 Kickboxing and another 10 for amatuer boxing.

Keningau MMA ( KMMA ) lead by Mohd Bakri,  this time will be sending 15 fighters, 13 for kickboxing and 2 for boxing. KMMA has been very active in participating in local fight events. Participating in fights in other town is always a challenge due to the long travel by car. But this time it's at their base and they have been preparing very intensely and expect a fine showing from KMMA.

Anil Mehta has spend time at KMMA to exchange some training tips and KMMA will be cornering him for the Super 8 fight

As for the new team of Kinabalu Kings lead by Bee Jay will be sending 9 fighters. As a new team that was just formed in feb this year, they have doing well in Kickboxing events. At STAND 1 winning 3 Gold and 2 silver, STAND 2, 2 Gold and 2 silver, BAC Labuan 3 Gold 2 silver and most recently in October - Fight Fest 3, 7 Gold 2 silver.

With a few muaythai champion in the team such as Faizal Boy Kicap, Reyan Abdul and Ben Banetto, which trains the newcomer, Kinabalu Kings has won the Inter-Club Muaythai in Sept at Sandakan. According to Bee Jay, his team comprises 2 newcomer and the other 7 fighters have no more than 4 fights in their record. He is looking to develop them further, but also confident that they will achieve the 4 gold he has set.

Fighters weigh in has been done at Friday and fight day in on 26-27 Nov. Let's show support for the fighters and cheer them on and support local fight events that bring fight action to us!

All the best to the fighters and organiser for a great STAND 3!

Come STAND with me

The sun is setting and its ray strike your face but you are not bothered coz you got your shades on. Breeze from South China Sea sweeps your hair as the smells of smoked meat aroused your appetite. Hand on a cold drink, you move your feet on the soft, loose sands as your hearts thumps to the beats from a 3ft speaker. As the sky turns darks,… the sound of bell ring and the crowds roar to life as the attention shifts towards a ring where two warriors are throwing bombs at each other.

Where is this you ask? Phuket? Bali? No people…it’s K.K. (Kota Kinabalu)! Yup, right here in the heart of Sabah Borneo. Bringing to you … STAND. A new concept of fight event in Malaysia, where it will combine the action of boxing and Kickboxing with the excitement of a beach party.

STAND will happen on 22-24 April at the stunning resort of NEXUS Karambunai, just ½ hour drive from KK. This award winning beach resort that has seen many international functions being held at it’s sprawling 65 acres beachfront landscape. When STAND happens there this April it will be the 1st fight event with a beach party concept in Malaysia.

STAND will feature amateur boxing and K1 Kickboxing. Co-organised by 2 of Sabah’s top martial arts gym, namely; Team Karabaw and Keningau MMA (KMMA), with the collaboration with Kaza Musa Fight management .

According to Rayner Kinsiong (Team Karabaw’s founder cum STAND’s event director) STAND will feature boxing & K1 Kickboxing matches. Both at amateur level. Rayner sees that boxing is the least promoted fight sports in Sabah currently and he hopes STAND can be a platform for amateur boxer to build their fight experience. As for K1 Kickboxing, it may not be as well known as Muaythai in Sabah but it’s an upcoming martial sports that is gaining popularity due to its fast pace action.

STAND will open up lots of category for boxing & kickboxing and will be held over 3 days. For K1 Kickboxing 11 category for men and 5 for women will be competed. Meanwhile boxing will have 10 category for men & 3 for women. Day 1 will be registration, weighing in and photo shoot for fighters and team. Day 2 will see fights for all preliminary rounds and day 3 will feature finals rounds to determine the champion. Winners will be bringing back cash prizes and medals.

Fight Five is the sponsor for fight gear. This is a new high quality local Malaysian brand and it will be making its debut in a fight event at STAND. Fight Five apparel will also be available soon, with fantastic design from New York designer....witness it for yourself at STAND.

The organizer is looking forward to large participations by team. For their convenience of accommodation, venue sponsors NEXUS Karambunai is giving a special rate of RM288 per night for any team. Team with most medals collected will get to bring home a big a$$ challenge trophy!

The organizers hope to bring great fight action in the ring to entertain fight fans but around the ring too will be many entertaining activities. Auto and bike show has been planned to satisfied motor-heads. Food and drinks will also be available with a menu focus on BBQ dishes. And of course, DJ’s will be in the house to spin you all the entertaining beats.

STAND’s fight night beach party is inspired by BBQ Beatdown organized monthly by Tiger Muay Thai (TMT) in Phuket. TMT is the No.1 fight gym in Thailand and has produced many top fighters in Muaythai & MMA. Foreigners from around the globe especially westerners flock to TMT as the training is facilities is top notch, great trainers and also the lure of the beach party. Even in Bali now a few fight gym has been set up as they see the success of Phuket drawing in serious fighters and also lots of casual fighters and fitness enthusiast.

STAND wants to replicate the mood in BBQ Beatdown, where fighters can fight and build their fight experience, at the same time his team can stay at the resort for a weekend getaway. Casual fight fans can enjoy watching fights and enjoy a beach party at the same time.

This could be a potential new segment for tourism in Sabah. Rayner was one of the trainer in Amazing Borneo package of tour for Sabah where tourist can come & enjoy the many outdoor adventure activities in Sabah such as climbing Mt Kinabalu, water rafting, scuba diving, jungle trekking and they add in training with ONE Championship fighters which include AJ Pyro and Ann Osman. With this concept from STAND,
I believe Sabah can also be successful in fight tourism. We have great beautiful beaches and resorts in Sabah. Bringing the fights to these amazing places and throw in a great party, this could be a great recipe to boost tourism in Sabah.

Let's get to know the sponsors, giving them the support as without their support we will not be able to watch STAND for free.

STAND is brought to us by Borneo MajuBina ( BMB ). BMB has been strong supporter of martial arts event. BMB also help support JFL and Team Karabaw grand participation in Ultimate Beatdown 17 in Johor Bahru. Warriors of Borneo had a quick chat with Hisham Michael, the CEO of Borneo Majubina.

May I know your role in Borneo MajuBina (BMB)
I am one of three directors in the company. The other two is Aidil Zakuan and Mustaqim.

BMB play a big role in Team Karabaw & JFL...why does BMB chooses to support martial arts?
Me and Rayner Kinsiong used to go way back to the good old Karate days where we used to compete along side in State and National events. Martial arts gave me the proper structure to be the person I am today. And I'd like to give the younger generations an opportunity to build their character whether competing in this sport or in fighting for their career in the same way Karate has given me the opportunity too.

What is BMB's main business? Can you please give the readers some background on BMB?
BMB is actually a construction company, we've been around since 2011. Our aim is to give our clients the best in comfort and ease that our projects are completed in the best possible manner whether it is a school project, government quarters, government offices etc. Our second aim is to bring up young locals that are interested to pursue their career in the construction industry by giving them the opportunity to handle every aspects of this very tough market.

What do you hope to achieve through STAND?
The same way we in BMB are giving the opportunity to young locals to pursue their career in the construction industry, the same way we hope to achieve in the martial arts industry. We hope to be a part of building our younger generations that will eventually be an asset to our society.

When did the idea for a beach party and fights came about?
My team and Rayner had a discussion at a mamak shop in 88 Market in Kepayan. The best ideas come out of teh tarik and roti canai session. We were discussing on how for us to make it interesting enough for the younger crowds to get involved in martial arts, hence the beach party theme event came about.



ELITEZ MMA is also a sponsors for STAND. ELITEZ MMA is the 1st MMA gym in Klang Selangor. It is headed by Andy 'The Bullet' Teh, a pro MMA fighter and recently starred in local chinese movie FIST of PASSION. Sabahan Effendy Kalai & Eddey Kalai of The Kalai Borthers Boxing is also a part of ELITEZ MMA team of coaches.

Andy Teh with the Kalai Brothers

Another sponsors is from the interior of Sabah, Keningau, the land of the legendary Murut warriors. This is where Keningau MMA ( KMMA ) is located. Headed by it's head coach Mohd Bakri, KMMA has produced a JFL bantamweight Champion 2015 in Mohd Hasbullah Sanmin. Find out more on KMMA in my previous posting here.

WARRIORS OF BORNEO supports STAND as a pioneer in fight tourism, fight fans let’s support this together and make it a success. Come and enjoy great fights and good food. Entrance is FREE!
This possibly is a first step for Sabah to be on the map for fight tourism. Let’s have fun and create history!

Check out STAND's Facebook for further updates, or call Rayner Kinsiong 013-888 8379 for further infor.