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.
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| Kids Muaythai |
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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.
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| Alexander Fong in action |
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.
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| 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 )
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| Reyan being awarded the Fight Fest 60kg Kickboxing Title Belt |
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| 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.
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| Taekwon-do & Silat demonstration |
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| Virtual Reality games by VIRTUAL DIMENSION |
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| Hilmi Reitz with his Combat Science |
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| Michelle Koh’s FUZE FITNESS |
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| Power Root sponsors the fitness challenge |
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| RAMPAGE fight gear |
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| Iylia with his Fight Comics tee |
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| Congrat to Reyan and KINABALU KINGS team for a succesful outing at FIGHT FEST |
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