MMA draws thousands in Nigeria as fight sport gains ground
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Nigerian professional MMA fighter Daniel Iwuoha fights against Burkina Fasos Abdul Razac Sankara during their lightweight title bout at the Pistis Conference Centre in Lagos on June 13.
PHOTO: AFP
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LAGOS – The arena was packed on June 13 night in the upscale Lekki neighbourhood of Nigeria’s bustling commercial capital, Lagos.
Eighteen fighters from eight African countries were slugging it out before thousands of cheering mixed martial arts (MMA) fans.
It was the ninth instalment of the African Knockout Championship, an MMA fight league that started off in 2020 as a reality television show African Knockout in Lagos, as the Covid-19 lockdown waned.
The formal championship started in May 2023 and has since hosted fighters from 18 countries, the chief operating officer of African Knockout, Ryan Fayad, told AFP.
While football remains king in the west African country, combat sports such as boxing and wrestling have enjoyed moderate success and produced continental and world champions in the past.
The exploits of Nigerian-born Israel Adesanya and Kamaru Usman, former UFC middleweight and welterweight champions, respectively, are spurring interest in organised mixed martial arts in the African economic powerhouse.
African Knockout is “driven by the fact that Africa doesn’t have any platform totally oriented for African talent to showcase themselves to the world and progress to reach those international stages”, Fayad, a Lebanese who has lived in Nigeria for 13 years, told AFP.
“The drive behind all this... is to find the next Kamaru Usman and the next Israel Adesanya and promote them all the way to the international stages,” he said.
Fayad said Usman is “totally hands-on” with the championship – apart from speaking publicly about the event in the past, the former UFC champion has also promoted it on social media.
About five thousand fans were at the last edition in April and several thousands more streamed the fights online.
“It’s not about money,” said Jibrin Inuwa Baba, 28, a four-time national kickboxing gold medallist, who is scheduled to fight Jean do Santos in August.
The main card of June 13 was the lightweight face-off where do Santos from neighbouring Benin defeated homeboy Emmanuel Nworie by submission via triangle choke.
“I decided to do this sport because of the love of the sport and love of competition,” Baba told AFP. He said that while MMA is growing “fast in Nigeria”, there is still plenty of work to be done.
Eighteen fighters (two female) were in the octagon on June 13. Roughly half of them were Nigerians with fighters from Egypt, Angola, Togo, Burkina Faso and Cameroon also on the card.
Cameroon’s Styve Essono, who defeated Nigeria’s Damilare Abdulrahim, said his light-heavyweight victory “will open up a lot of opportunities for me”.
Eighteen-year-old Nigerian Fabian Texas shrugged aside being ill to knock out Egypt’s Mahmud Ibrahim in the second round of their middleweight bout.
“We are still coming up, and I feel that we are not there yet,” Baba, who holds a degree in civil engineering, said at the weigh-in for the fighters on June 12.
Still, the championship has seen a measure of success since it began, with one of its fighters – DR Congo’s Josias Musasa – making his UFC debut in March.
The crowd roared as kicks and punches flew.
A valiant performance by Angola’s Andre Mukisi, who fought on to a featherweight victory against Togo’s Fred Kudzete, despite being tired, drew one of the biggest rounds of applause.
“The crowd is here for the good fights and not really about home support for Nigerian fighters,” said Lois Ogunniyi, a 30-year-old media executive who runs Fist2Fist, a small online community of MMA fans.
Despite the growing interest and optimism that the championship will eventually be exported to other African countries, Fayad said the lack of infrastructure and the absence of institutional support are impeding the growth of the sport in Nigeria.
He said getting visas for foreign fighters was always cumbersome, some officials are flown in and, for now, the championship relies on rented spaces to stage fights.
“We are hoping that the government will also help us have access to proper infrastructure,” Fayad said.
“If we had proper infrastructure, people would go to stadiums to watch. So that’s what we are looking for, so it can make our operation easier.” AFP
