KK is the new Sabah Inter-District Muaythai Champion

The two day Muaythai tournament gave a good closing for Muaythai in Sabah, with Kota Kinabalu (KK) emerging as the new overall champion among the 12 district that competed. 2015 Champion , Tawau took 6th placing.

It was a close fight between KK and Sandakan, both district won 15 medals each but KK edge Sandakan with 1 extra gold medal to be the champion.

KK Muaythai presiden Muslee Tuah receiveing the champion award from Sabah Muaythai president Hj Nazri. Looking on is Maman Ajamain (R) vice President Sabah Muaythai and Zamalani (L), secretary general of Sabah Muaythai & Sabah Fight organiser

The Inter-District was organised by Sabah Muaythai Association, Kota Kinabalu Muaythai Association and Kaza Musa Fight Management to unearth new talent for Sabah. Sabah Muaythai has seen a busy 2016, with Inter-Club championship being organised in August at Sandakan.  Followed by sending a team to the national championship in September, a month later, Tawau Muaythai Championship. In November, Sabah Muaythai team brought back the Borneo Cup to Sabah.

The Inter-District Championship was also held together with Sabah Fight. A pro Muaythai fight event organised by Kelab Sukan Inspirasi Kinabalu and Kaza Musa Fight Management. According to Kaza Musa, the pro fight card was organised with 5 pro bouts per night with Pro Muaythai athletes from Sabah, Labuan, Miri and India. 

Not only does it add the hype to the championship but these pro fights also showcase the best of Muaythai in this region and act as a motivating factor and inspiration to the amateur Muaythai athletes.

Datuk Idris Jumat closed the event on the evening of 11 Dec at Karamunsing Complex by giving away the Datuk Idris Jumat Cup sponsored by Parliament 171 Sepanggar to the winner of the main event of the night Anil Mehta of Team Relentless India vs Ronald Tee of Borneo Combat Gym Labuan. Anil emerged the winner.

Anil Mehta of Team Relentless India won the Datuk Idris Jumat Cup

Datuk Idris commented that Muaythai is gaining popularity in Sabah and he believes this is a good sign and will always be willing to support healthy sports activities that targets the youth. he congratulated Sabah Muaythai Association for successfully organising the Inter-District Championship 2016. 

Sabah Muaythai president, Hj Nazri said that Sabah will be the host for 2017 Borneo Cup, which will see participation from Sarawak, Kalimantan and Brunei and is looking forward to have a successful event in Likas Stadium in April. Sabah Muaythai has also identified potential talent that will represent Sabah to defend the Borneo Cup that Sabah has won this year.

Sabah Fight pro cards review coming soon in next blog post.

SABAH FIGHT - PRESENTING THE BEST OF SABAH MUAYTHAI

D1 Fighting Championship brought new height for Muaythai in Sabah during 2014/2015. As D1FC took a breather this year, the gap has been filled with new Muaythai events.

With D1FC' s chairman Haji Nazri in the helm as the President for Persatuan Muaythai Negeri Sabah, Sabah has seen a very busy year for Muaythai. In August, Elopura Fights brought the action to the Eastern side of Sabah. It was held together with Sabah's Inter-Club Muaythai Championship which saw Kinabalu Kings emerge as the Champion.

Hj Nazri

In September, Sabah Muaythai send a state team to the National Championship and brought home 6 medals (1-Gold, 4 - Silver , 4 bronze) taking the 5th placing nationally.

Muaythai Sabah's team to National Muaythai Championship 2016

In October, the action went back to eastern Sabah with Tawau Muaythai Championship held in conjunction with National Sports Day.

In November, Sabah Muaythai sent a team to Lundu Sarawak for the Borneo Cup challenge and emerge victorious with 2 Gold, 3 Silver and 1 Bronze to bring the Borneo Cup to Sabah.

Sabah - Borneo Cup Champion 2016

Come this weekend ( 10-11 Dec 2016 ) The Inter-District Muaythai Championship will go down in Karamunsing Complex. This is held together with Sabah Fights ; pro Muaythai cards.

The inter-district will see 12 district from Sabah battling for amateur Muaythai supremacy. Will Tawau defend their title won last year? 

As for Sabah Fights, these pro cards has been schedule to go down from 7pm onwards to keep fight fans occupied and inspire the young ones to perform well. 

Sabah Fights is organised together with Kelab Sukan Inspirasi Kinabalu ( Inspirasi), Parliament P17 Sepanggar Office and Kaza Musa Fight Event Management.

Inspirasi and Parliament P17 organised Sabah Fights with the objective to get more youth into healthy activities especially sports, with their moto: Inspiring People Through Sports.

As for Kaza Musa or his real name Zamalani Masulin, is no stranger to Sabah's fight events. To those that does not realised that he has been managing most fight events here, you may have heard his sharp loud cheery voice over the mic in fight events. Aside from announcing for fights, his emceeing style that uses local dialect and slang plus the ability to insert humour provide entertaining value to the casual fans.

This young lad from Kota Marudu is a qualified dive instructor and started martial arts in Shotokan Karate. 4 years ago he took up Muaythai. He was among the pioneering group of people that took up Muaythai in Sabah; among them are Randal Kadayum, Dean Hamsah, Johan Julian, Maman, Erexy, Shah 66.

His passion in martial arts especially Muaythai saw him winning bronze in Borneo Cup Championship 2015 and being elected as the Muaythai Sabah's secretary general for 2015-2017. This passion also is the one that drives him to go into fight event management.

The weigh-in was done on Friday at Youth Arena, Kepayan. The planned event hi-light of Super 4 for Datuk Jumat Idris Cup has been dampen with one of the fighters, Ronny Shah not making weight for 60 kg. This is not the first time Ronny missed weigh, the most recent one was in STAND 3 Keningau.

The original planned Super 4 fight now canceled

To salvage the main event, the Super 4 has been dropped and Super Fight has been arranged. The main event now will see Ronald Tee of Borneo Combat Gym Labuan (BCG) vs Anil Mehta of Team Relentless India.

Ronald Tee is only 20 years old but already posses a pro Muaythai record of 5-1 and Pro K1 Kickboxing 4-0. He started fighting pro K1 when he was 16 and Pro Muaythai 2 years ago. He most recently won in Elopura Fights against a nak muay from Kelantan in August.

Ronald works as a full time instructor in BCG under the tutelage of Coach Alvin Chong. Ronald wants to win this Datuk Idris Jumat Cup for BCG and for his coach. It was coach Alvin that help him when he turned to the dark side.

As a young teen Ronald got into fights and was a rebel rouser in high school. His notorious attitude finally got him expelled from school when he was in form 4 and he started hanging out with bad hats and spend his times in clubs partying, drinking and smoking.

For a couple of months he wasted his youth until he happen to bump into his BCG mate jogging to prepare for a tournament. It hit him hard that the partying life is not what he wants. He sucked up his pride, face up to his problem and went back to coach Alvin to apologize for his behavior. He wanted back in.

Ronald is also a qualified ISKA MMA & Kickboxing referee. Seen here with Coach Alvin ( 2nd right ) 

Alvin sees himself in Ronald as he once also went through the same problem. He took him back into BCG, helped him get into a new school to finish his SPM. and made sure he occupied himself in training and focusing his studies.

This Super fight for the Datuk Idris Jumat Cup will be a big motivation for Ronald to show the deep appreciation of what Coach Alvin has done for him. But his opponent is not easy meat. On the other end of the ring will be Anil Mehta. 

Living true to his team's name Relentless, Anil serve as a police in his home state of Himachal Pradesh in northern India. He travels close to 1800 km to Mumbai to train under coach Jitendre Khare, India's MMA pioneer.

with Jitendre ( right )

winning STAND 2, light welterweigh

In September Anil won the K1 Light welterweight fight in STAND Series 2. In October he was back in Kota Kinabalu, winning his Super Fight and brought home the Fight Fest 3 65kg title belt.

Anil winning the Fight Fest 3 title

Not wanting to stop there, he return again to Sabah in November to participate in STAND series 3 Super 8. Moving up to 70kg. But it was not third time lucky as he lost in the final by point to Nidal Mahmoud.

Now he is in KK again, with the aim of ending 2016 with another title from The Land Below the Wind. 

This Super fight will be very exciting. Anil is relentless in his approach and will keep pushing forward with combos. His favorite weapons is his elbow and will maximize use his long reach to find his target. As for Ronald, shorter in height but he will be making this up with his speed. Ronald is a skill boxer and will utilise his fast hands to mess up Anil's rhythm.

This main card will be feature on 11 DEC 2016.

The co-main event on Day 2 will see Mohd Rizal of Team Karabaw fighting Madjias Lim aka Opong the Maphlindo.

Rizal 32 years this year but is still fighting fit. Working as a technician that require him to travel all over Sabah it does poses a challenge for him to get regular training, but his attitude of never say die always carry him through.He was just in Manila last week for Philipine International Kyokushinkai Karate Championship.

He started off his martial arts journey with boxing and picked up Muaythai. This will be his 2nd pro Muaythai fight, with the 1st fight in F3 Borneo Series last year which he lost by points. Rizal was in the Sabah state Muaythai team in November that won the Borneo Cup, Rizal contributing a bronze.

For Day 1 the spotlight will see seasoned Muaythai fighters Randal Kadayum of Kinabalu Fighters vs Reyan Abdul of Kinabalu Kings. 

Randal has achieved a lot in Muaythai among it, winning 4 D1FC title, Sarawak TYT Cup 2015, Borneo Cup 2016 , Elopura Fights 2016. But he has a score to settle with Reyan, as he lost to Reyan last year in F3 Borneo Series.

Randal would like to end 2016 with another trophy in his collection, this time for the 66 Askar Hantu Trophy. Find out whether 'The Slayer' Randal able to slay Reyan ' The Shadow Hunter'

Women fight hi-light will see a good match up of Aurora Chai of D-30 Miri vs Nurul 'Chiko' Khairunnisa of Team Karabaw.

Judging from pass women fight, it has always been very fast pace and non-stop action, at times more action than the men's fight. This match up is good as it's a fight between a new comer in martial arts; Aurora and an experience fighter in Chiko.

Aurora trains at D-30 under Master Tang Hui Ding. She is only 16 but has a great appetite for martial arts. In Fight Fest 3, she participated in 3 events, BJJ, Kickboxing and MMA. She manage to reach semi-finals for her Kickboxing and for the SuperFight MMA, she lost a close decision to Barbara of Sabah Top team in a action packed fight.

Chiko has fought MMA numerous time in MIMMA. And in JFL she was the Grand Finalist in 2015. In Sept she won the straweight fight in STAND series 2. Chiko fight with passion and a great focus. She has a no retreat no surrender attitude.
This fight promise to provide plenty of fireworks.

Thanks to all the sponsors and the organisers, the event will be free, no ticket charge. So come down to Karamunsing Complex and support your fighters. Check out SABAH FIGHT FB for more updates.

and don't forget to buy yourself a limited edition t-shirt for souvenir

LUTA LIVRE EXPANDING TO SIBU

Most of us would have heard of Brazilian Jiu Jit Su. This martial arts has already made it's mark in Borneo, with the establishment of Persatuan Jiu Jit-Su Negeri Sabah that has organised numerous grappling competition such as Headhunters Challenge, Sabah Open and Badak Challenge.

Usually day one of the comp are BJJ (with gi), and grappling challenge (no gi) for the second day. This no gi challenge is actually a martial arts by itself and has it's own history, heritage and development and it's call Brazilian Luta Livre ( BLL). In Borneo BLL was introduce by Antonio Battistessa. Do check out my story on him to learn m ore about BLL, click here 

BLL is now spreading it's wing to Sarawak, via Borneo Top Team (BTT), lead by Lucas Lau. Borneo Top Team is home to MIMMA4 Middleweight Grand Finalist Bryant Tan 

This 9-11 December a BLL seminar will be conducted by Prof. Gustavo Muniz.

Warriors of Borneo manage to have a chat with Lucas Lau on this.

Greetings Lucas, can you introduce yourself to the readers

My name is Lucas Lau, 34 years old born and raised in Sibu. I came from a humble family background. I am into construction and renovation business for many years.

How did you started BTT?
Since Martial Art has always been my passion and interest, I’ve decided to setup a Muay Thai gym and hire a trainer from Thailand. The initial idea was to just have fun with some friends and to train among ourselves but slowly more and more people started to know the place. The gym was officially open for public in 2012. It was known as Muay Thai Fitness Gym by that time then renamed to Borneo Top Team soon after that.

Tell me about your personal martial arts journey? When you started & why?

My father was a Chinese martial art practitioner and I was influenced by him at a very young age. I started practicing Taekwondo since I was 7 years old until middle school. I was actively involved in athletic competition, basketball, rugby and soccer and that is one of the reason I stopped my Taekwondo journey.

Somewhere in 2011, I’ve decided to pursue my dream and embrace my passion. I packed my bag, bought myself a ticket to Chiang Mai, Thailand and trained in a Muay Thai camp for some times. Going to Santai Muay Thai Gym gave me an opportunity to know many friends from around the world. 

One of the guy that I’ve met, a Canadian, Jay Davies. He is a good man and a good friend. He introduced me one of his student from Canada, Andrew Babcock to come to my gym in Sibu to teach BJJ and MMA. From just doing Muay Thai, we soon explored ourselves into MMA and BJJ.

How did you get into Luta Livre?

Prof.Antonio Battistessa, BLL brown belt, owner/founder of Sabah Top Team introduced Brazilian Luta Livre to me. Knowing Brazilian Luta Livre (Free wrestling @ direct translation from Portuguese) is actually a no-gi grappling, it caught my attention in no time. Since we were doing no-gi grappling all these while, (No-Gi Grappling is known as BLL) I didn’t hesitated to open up to Brazilian Luta Livre.

How did Master Gustavo get into the picture? Is he permanently base in BTT?

After a few phone calls with Prof. Antonio Battistessa, I’ve decided to find a BLL coach to come and teach in my gym. He made some calls and finally Master Afonso Cego from Brazil (BLL Black Belt stationed in Manila, Philippine), responded with a great news, saying his friend from Rio de Janeiro, Brazil would love to come and teach in my gym! Soon, we’ve arranged Master Gustavo Muniz to come. He is now BTT Head Coach and co-owner of BTT. He is now permanently based in BTT. 

Can you tell us more about prof Gustavo?
It was a great honor to have Master Gustavo Muniz, a 3rd Dan Brazilian Luta Livre Black Belt, to come all the way from Rio de Jainero, Brazil and coach in our gym in Sibu. He has more than 20 years of experience in Capoeira and Brazilian Luta Livre. 

Master Gustavo Muniz won lots of competition and championships. Just to name a few, Greco Roman Brazilian Champion, Brazilian Luta Livre State Champion, Island Cup Champion, some Muay Thai and MMA championships as well. He is the founder of Honor Fight Club, which is now expanding to 7 countries worldwide.

Tell me a bit on martial arts scene in Sibu? I know a lot of people always say Sibu have lots of gangster, did it happen before that gangster disturb you or your students?
There aren’t many martial art gym in Sibu, especially MMA or grappling gym. We are the only gym in town teaching MMA and Brazilian Luta Livre. It was a tough work promoting and introducing the sport to society in Sibu. 

The growing family of BTT

And yes, you are right, other than our delicious local food, we are popular for being a gangster town but it is not as terrible as how people projected it. It is a small town and I never have problem with gangster coming to disturb the gym or the students.

Is it easy to get Sibuian to take up MMA? What is the overall response?
It was very tough when we just started. MMA is not a stranger to them but many think that is a violent sport. Through some roadshows and demos in publics, people started to see it as a sport just like other martial art. Right now we are doing lots of public events to educate and to create awareness to the public the benefits of practicing MMA. 

martial arts demo by BTT

We have a roadshow in Wisma Sanyan on 31st December 2016, from 1:30pm to 5:30pm. We will be doing real life demo on how to protect ourselves when bad thing happens. Also, we have a BLL & MMA training camp coming on 9th to 11th December in Sibu. Some participants are from Indonesia and Singapore. We hope to have more locals involving in the training camp.

Tell me some of the achievements of BTT.
We’ve won some competition from time to time. 1 of our fighter, Bryan Tan managed to compete in MIMMA Grand final last October in Stadium Negara. Even though he didn’t win the fight, we are still proud of him. 

Lucas (L) with Bryant (center) and Brandon (R)

The last competition was in Fight Fest3 and we won 2 golds in MMA. Next competition will be Warriors FC, Penang. My student, Yannis will be going against an experienced MMA Fighter with 13 wins and 2 loses record. We are looking forward to this fight. We hope to join more competitions in the near future to gain more experiences and knowledges.

Yannis will compete against Niker Tan ( MIMMA3 Finalist)

A lot of people does not realise that most fights go to the ground and will have lots of grappling and scuffling. This is where a grappling martial arts is very effective and Luta Livre is certainly perfect for this situation as you learn to grapple without using a gi ( martial arts uniform ).

Be it you looking to learn self defense or adding to your arsenal as a martial artist, do take this chance to learn this unques and very effective martial arts, sign up and learn from the expert.

Warriors of Borneo wishes BTT a very successful seminar.

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!