Mohd Rayyan : Rise of the Black Mamba at X-Fight

Tonight ( 21 Apr 2017 ) will be an important night for a young Muaythai athlete from the Land Below the Wind - SABAH. His name is Mohd Rayyan aka The Black Mamba.

Rayyan will be representing Malaysia in Hong Kong's X-Fight, a new combat sports promotions. Rayyan will fight in the main card to battle for the Intercontinental Champion Belt. Fighting at 51kg Rayyan will face Hong Kong multiple Muaythai Champion Kenneth Yueng.

Face off & weighing in for X-Fight Hong Kong ( 20 April 2017), fight night on 21 April 2017

Turning 19 this year, Rayyan has already accomplished a lot for his age.
Some of his accolades includes: 

Borneo Phoenix MuayThai Amatuer Challenge 2014
- Champion 42-45kg 

Dihnar D-1 Mount Kinabalu MuayThai Challenge 2014"The Game is On"
-Silver 48kg

Kejohanan Sabah MuayThai Challenge"The best Of Sabah"
-Silver 45-48kg

D1 Fighting Championship Rhino Warriors: The rise of Rhino Warriors
- 45-48kg Champion

Kejohanan MuayThai Piala Borneo
-45-48kg borneo champion

The Golden Rumble .MuayThai Championship
-48-51kg champion

Kejohanan MuayThai PMM Antara Kelab kebangsaan(National level)
-Silver 45-48kg

Tawau MuayThai Championship Pro
-Silver 52kg

F3 "borneo series" semi pro
-Champion 51kg

Borneo Kickboxing & MMA Amatuer Challenge 2
-Champion 52kg

Elopura Fights Pro 2016
-52kg Champion

Tawau MuayThai Championship Pro 2016
-52kg Champion

Kejohanan MuayThai Amatur Piala Borneo 2016
- 51-54kg champion

He started off at the age of 12 in Wushu and Taekwondo. But always had the desire to take up Muaythai. Then he walked into Kinabalu Fighters gym. He took up boxing class at first and later on their Muaythai class.

He and his close friend Aziz went together to Kinabalu Fighters. They are both pro Muaythai fighters now and always help each other in training. But Rayyan remembered in one of the early lesson with coach Randal Kadayum, in a sparring session, even though it felt like torture but this further fuel his interest in Muaythai.

pic by Anwar Iddris

At a young age his parents was divorce and having a tough time to deal with this he turned his energy into martial arts. Rayyan dad's is Brunei Malay and his mother is of Bajau heritage but he speaks fluent mandarin from his days in chinese primary school SRJK Chung Hwa Likas.  

He lost his father a few years back and his mother remarried. Knowing his passion for martial arts they gave him full support in his pursue of greatness in martial arts. Rayyan now fights motivated by the support from them and the memory of his late father.

pic by Anwar Iddris

He now is the owner of Team Black Mamba gym. At 19 he is the yougest owner of a gym in Sabah. This opportunity was given to him by his mentor Johan Julian, founder of Kinabalu Fighters.

Last year, Dihnar gym was vacant and Julian decides to setting it up running again...but with the plan of training and grooming Rayyan. As Rayyan shows signs of leadership and commitment he decided to let him took over as his own gym.

With the money his late father left him, Rayyan took on the challenge and bought the gym over from Dihnar and henceforth the birth of Black Mamba Gym which is located at Kepayan, Kota Kinabalu.

Julian recalled seeing him the first time in Kinabalu Fighters gym. A skinny young lad but with big hearts full of determination.

" He showed early signs of maturity and good discipline since young and is hardworking. I always wanted him to be more than just fighters. He already have a trainer certificate and thus being a gym owner will be the biggest learning of his life.

Mohd Rayyan (center) will be cornered by coach Julian (R) in X-Fight Hong Kong.

I made sure his gym has a good support system. We placed coach Rudy in his gym ( an accomplished Muaythai trainer and respected national referee ) whom I knew for awhile and seeing that Rayyan's family supports him fully made me believe he has a good foundation.

Even now as he trains for his fights, despite the busy preparation, his gym is looked after by his staff & senior students."

with coach Randall (L) and coach Julian (R)

training with coach Rudy (pic by Anwar Iddris )

training at BCG Labuan with coach Alvin (R) and Bow Suweilek (L)

Hj Nazri Razak, (in checkered shirt ) President of Sabah Muaythai giving Rayyan the support.

Rayyan paying a courtesy call to Datuk Haji Tawfiq-Sabah Youth & Sports Minister (on Rayyan's right )

To be stepping up to the ring to challenge for the Intercontinental Belt is certainly an honour for Rayyan and for this, he would like to say...

" I really wanna thank everyone that is involved especially to my coaches - coach Julian for setting up this fight for me and helping me in tons of things , Coach Rudy for doing a good work of taking care of me and Coach Randall for all those years of teaching me Muaythai ...Secondly I would like to thank my parents for their blessings and support .

To my girlfriend thanks for being here for me ...my teammates and friends for the endless support...my sponsors Boon Sin Furniture , Martial Bay , The Big Support from The Ministry of Youth and Sports (Sabah) , Persatuan Muaythai Sabah , a good friend of mine Sherzali.

full support from his Black Mamba team

thanking all his sponsors

Warriors of Borneo wishes Rayyan a great fight tonight, fight hard, fight smart, fight with all your heart!

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