JIHIN 'SHADOW CAT' TOOK HOME GOLD FROM JOHOR INT. JIUJITSU CHAMPIONSHIP

MIMMA4 Female Champion, Jihin Radzuan aka the Shadow Cat from Ultimate MMA Johor Bahru took home 1 gold and 1 bronze from Johor International Jiu-JitSu Championship.

The two day event 14-15 October was held at Plaza Sentosa Johor Bahru. More than 150 participants competed in Gi & No-Gi category. Gi was contested on day 1 and No-Gi on the 2nd day.

Day 1 Gi category saw 153 entries, while Day 2 No-Gi saw 102.

Jihin participated in two category. She took the Gold in the No-Gi Blue belt 56.5-58.5 kg,
In the Semi-finals she defeated a girl from Checkmat (Pamela Mae) with high elbow guillotine. While in the finals defeated another girl from Checkmat (Hai Qi) with toe hold to firmly secure gold.

Jihin executing the toe hold

No-Gi Blue belt champion. Jihin was happy competing in her now favourite Wonder Women rash guard. It was a gift by her sister

In Female Absolute ( no weight limit ) she went against One Championship MMA athlete, Tiffany Teo. She lost the fight and got a bronze.

"It was a good experience coz the no gi rules is modified IBJJF rules. We play advantage and penalty which mean no one can stalling."

Jihin has dominated in amatuer MMA by winning the MIMMA4 female category and has recently turned pro and took a win in her pro MMA debut in Ultimtae Beatdown 23. JIJC was not her first grappling competition. She first participated in Johor BJJ Open 2 and won a silver in juvenile category.

The 2nd time she competed in Johor BJJ Open, she got 2nd place in juvenile and gold medal for no limit weight female white belt.

She will be competing again this Saturday 28 Oct in Johor Muaythai Open, in the 54kg pro Muaythai.

Ask wheter she will take a break from competing after this...

"I don't think there is a break in my dictionary. After Johor Open Muaythai, I will be fighting K1 Kickboxing in Ultimate Beatdown: Medini Showdown this 4-5 Nov. I will continue competing to gain as much experience as possible"

Monarchy MMA had a dominating performance emerging as champions for for Gi & No Gi. They took home 8 golds and accumulated 98 points for Day 1, followed by Checkmat International A and 3rd placing goes to Fortitude BJJ A.

As for Day 2, again on top with 9 golds and a haul of 111 points, followed again by Checkmat International A & Reps Doberman.

Event coordinater FS Cheng was very happy with the turn out and he thank all the sponsors, team and competitors and their supporters for coming out to make the first Johor International Jiu-JitSu Championship (JIJC) a success. 

sponsors for 1st JIJC

building future generations

JIJC is not FS Cheng  first BJJ event, in total he has organised 4 times Johor BJJ Open before this and JIJC is a rebranding for Johor BJJ Open to bring it a level higher and appeal to the international athletes and he ask all the Jiu-Jiteros to be ready for the 2nd JIJC early next year!

( check out  more amazing pictures in JIJC FB page)

FIGHT FEST 4: THE ART OF COMBAT FULL RESULTS

The iconic mall of Centre Point Sabah was crowded with enthusiastic spectators on 7-8 October 2017. All of them glued their eyes and focus their attention on the Muaythai ring of Fight Fest.
Fight Fest returned with it's 4th edition and again wowed the crowds with plenty of martial arts action and activities.

Event founder Johan Julian again pointed out that Fight Fest continue to work with public mall where there are ready crowds for two reasons;
1st - to give more exposure of different type of martial arts to the masses, so that their interest will be sparked and may take up classes at the different martial arts gym in Sabah which in return will grow the industry.
2nd reason; that usually fighters will be supported by family and friends, and these group of people can in return bring business to the mall. Hence a win win situation for both parties.

For Day 1 ( 7 October ), Novice Muaythai tournament was organised. More than 50 participants took part. This tournament was organised together with Persatuan Muaythai Daerah Kota Kinabalu, with the sole purpose of unearthing more new Muaythai talents for Sabah.

Sabah have numerous Muaythai gym and for those that has taken up Muaythai and have been training hard, the only way to gauge what they have learnt is to test it out in the competition ring, hence the effort to organise this tournament, to enable newcomer to put into action what the months of practice they have gone through.

Kids Muaythai was also competed, but for Fight Fest, Julian's said the kids Muaythai is more of an exhibition match to give exposure for the participants. All fighters for kids Muaythai was awarded gold medals to give them motivation and encouragement.

Kids Muaythai

Next to the Muaythai ring, grappling mat was set up for BJJ & Mata Leao Submission Grappling. This was oversee by the Brazilian Luta Livre Asia Pacific Union led by Antonio Battistessa and Persatuan BJJ Negeri Sabah led by Soh.

Day 2 saw the Mata Leao No-Gi Submmission grappling held. 2 category was competed. White belt Absolute & Blue/Purple Belt Absolute.

In the White belt category, emerging talent from Borneo Tribal Sq, Alexander Fong emerged as the Champion. This victory was sweet for him as he enter the category as the lightest and smallest of all the competitor.

Alexander Fong in action

Mata Leao Submission Grappling continued with the Blue /Purple Belt category. Eazy Anuar of Brunei dominated and took home the coveted Fight Fest : Mata Leao Title Belt.
It was certainly memorable victory as this came from overcoming a pool of very accomplished grapplers.
In the category saw MIMMA 3 Semi-finalist & JFL 2015 finalist Samuel Lai from Borneo Tribal Sq returned back to competition after a long hiatus. Team Relentless India founder former Judoka Jitendre Khare and his team mate Susovan Ghosh also competed.

Eazy representing Walid Brothers is a former Brunei national team rugby player who took up BJJ to supplement his rugby training many years back and it became his no.1 passion. Leading the Team Bussido in Brunei, Eazy and team actively participate in numerous BJJ / Grappling tournament around Asia, and always brought back good results home.

Eazy most recently in August represented Brunei to the IBJJF World Masters in Las Vegas and reached the quarter finals in a stacked category of  62 athletes from all over the world.

proud owner of the 1st FIGHT FEST MATA LEAO title belt

K1 Kickboxing Superfight was the order of the 2nd half of the day with 11 bouts altogether. Kickboxing matches are sanction by ISKA. The hi-light being the 60kg K1 Kickboxing Title Fight between Aziz 'The Shantung Kid' vs Reyan 'Pemburu Bayang'
( click here to read the pre-event story on the main event fight )

Reyan being awarded the Fight Fest 60kg Kickboxing Title Belt

Reyan & Aziz together with representative from sponsors, POWEROOT, DEKOJUTA & CENTREPOINT

As for non competition activities, crowds and spectators was treated to plenty of activities.

Martial arts demo was conducted by Evolution Fight Team led by Master Stephen Koh and Silat Gayong by Persatuan Seni Silat Gayong Ma'arifat Malaysia - Cawangan Sabah.

Former SEA games Gold medalist Michelle Koh took center-stage before the title fight leading her group of dancer bringing her energetic Fuze Fitness to entertain and got everyone in a dance mood.

Taekwon-do & Silat demonstration

Virtual Reality games by VIRTUAL DIMENSION

Hilmi Reitz with his Combat Science

Michelle Koh's FUZE FITNESS

Power Root sponsors the fitness challenge

RAMPAGE fight gear

Iylia with his Fight Comics tee

Congrat to Reyan and KINABALU KINGS team for a succesful outing at FIGHT FEST