Caption: Eazy Anuar (L) and Jess Delapena during face off against the weigh in yesterday.
BRUNEI’S top Jiu Jitsu competitor Ahmad Faez Anuar of Khalifa Mixed Martial Arts will be making his pro MMA debut at the main event of the Ultimate Beatdown in Kota Kinabalu tonight.
He will face off against Jess Delapena at the ITCC Penampang Centre Atrium.
Ak Fauzi Pg Salleh of BruSports News is in the Sabah capital and managed to interview Ahmad Faez, or better known as Eazy, ahead of his exciting MMA debut.
Fauzi: Hi Eazy. What made you make the transition competing from Jiu Jitsu to MMA?
Eazy: I’ve competed in Jiu Jitsu since 2008, I am a brown belt and I had few comps. I have been getting podium finishes, but not to say that in a context that I’m putting myself on a high pedestal. No, what I’m saying is that I am just looking for new challenges.
But even before this, we have been training in MMA anyway, but I couldn't really commit because of my day job. I have always been in MMA camps and have always stayed ready had fights lined up but it never really happened because of my day job.
But now that my focus is Khalifa Mixed Martial Arts and family, I have more time to explore this area and I think that now being in my 30s, it is now or never and I think that I should get a few fights in.
Fauzi: You are the founder of Jiu Jitsu in Brunei, is this shift to MMA going to be a permanent one? Are we still going to see you competing in Jiu Jitsu?
Eazy: This new MMA shift, we will see how it goes. We will see how the opportunity presents itself after this and will see what doors open for me, but as for Jiu Jitsu, I will still be actively competing especially with sports Ju Jitsu now being indicted into the Asian Games and SEA games. So I'll try to be more involved in that and try to set up the association.
Fauzi: How have preparations been for your first MMA fight?
Eazy: The preparations for this camp, or the way we look at this camp in general, it's not really based on whether you are good in Jiu Jitsu or kick boxing. If you are look at it like that, then you will just be depending on your individual skill set or talent.
If you depend on talent, then you will also be depending too much on luck. So how we approached this training camp was to structure and come up with a gameplan, with a lot of transitions from striking, grappling and wrestling and to always be in control.
And we are trying to structure everything into mixed martial arts and not just a skill set of Jiu Jitsu, striking or wrestling. It is a well structured programme.
Fauzi: How do you feel ahead of this fight?
Eazy: I feel very excited for this fight, but at the same time there is a lot of pressure too since all Bruneians at home have high hopes.
But again pressure is always good as it keeps you focused and it keeps you on track and it will be my son's birthday over the weekend, so I just want to focus on giving a good performance.
Joining Eazy at the MMA event are Brunei's first MMA fight Muhd Nurhidayat Abdul and Koh Jin Fuh from Project Mayhem.
Zaim Norzairi and Zaim Roslan of Khalifa MMA will be competing in the 5 vs 5 grappling event, while a number of athletes from House of Fitness BN will also be making their debut at amateur boxing bouts.
