Article in Times of India

Fight Club

MIXED MARTIAL ARTS, WHICH DRAWS FROM VARIOUS STYLES OF COMBAT, IS BEGINNING TO THROW PUNCHES IN CHENNAI’S DIRECTION
Kamini Mathai | TNN 



    Antony Raj Narendran is an M Tech graduate from Vellore Institute of Technology. But the 24-year-old wants to be a professional fighter much to the worry of his parents. For Antony, teaching mixed martial arts (MMA) and training people to defend themselves is what he really wants to do. Getting into the ring, professionally, is just a bonus for him.

    A full contact combat sport which is becoming the rage across the country, MMA combines the best techniques of various martial arts — boxing, wrestling, judo, Brazilian jiujitsu, muay thai, karate and other styles. While it became popular the world over in the 1990s,

India got hooked in the 2000s.

    Antony’s club, the Eagles Combat Club, will launch only in September but he has already started training people. He went to Pune to train at Tiger’s Gym, considered one of the best places for mixed martial arts.

    Antony conducts his classes on his terrace and at Anna Nagar Tower Park. “Right now it’s just about building stamina and getting the punches and kicks right. After that, we get into fight training,” says Antony, who specialises in kickboxing.

    MMA became popular because people wanted to experiment with martial arts. “People wanted to see what would happen if someone proficient in one martial art fought someone proficient in another, on a level playing field,” says Daniel Isaac, CEO of Tiger’s Gym & Fight Club in Pune. While Daniel is proficient in kickboxing, he now trains people in MMA.

    He says there are three kinds of people who come to learn MMA — the ones who want to go professional (good professional fighters get paid anywhere between $2,000 and $10,000 a fight), women and children looking to learn practical self-defence, and those who want to keep fit.

    There are three kinds of combat in MMA — stand up fighting, which focuses on boxing, kick-boxing, muay thai; take down fighting, which combines judo, karate; and ground fighting, which is all about the best of wrestling, Brazilian jiu-jitsu. “That’s why MMA is called practical fighting. It trains you what to do in every situation,” says Daniel.

    Financial consultant Susovan Ghosh, 28, inspired by Bruce Lee, got into MMA training for fitness and self-defence but then found that he was getting good enough to win amateur fights. “I now train five hours a day for the pro fight that’s coming up. I was scared in the beginning but I’ve now learnt to handle the fear and the injury,” says Susovan, who is heading to Singapore on September 3 for his first pro fight.

    Susovan is being coached by Mumbai-based Alan Fenandes aka The Bull, one of India’s top MMA fighters. “I was born to fight. I used to get into a lot of them too on the street,” says Alan. “That’s when I got into MMA because I realised this was the same as the street fight, only under safer conditions. And this one gets you money and fame. People pay to watch the fights — like sports entertainment, this one’s called fight entertainment,” adds Alan, 32, who now has a fan club of over 1,000 people, and vows to keep fighting till his body gives up.

    kamini.mathai@timesgroup.com 

MANY STYLES: Antony Raj Narendran (right) teaches students how to build stamina and later, introduces fight training