The Pride of Bahrain Hamza Kooheji is fully focused and ready to put in the hard work necessary to achieve title winning success in the cage of dreams before an adoring audience of fanatical fans.
The 29-year-old Bahraini mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter, currently ranked number one in his weight division in the Middle East, is training relentlessly in a gym in Manama preparing for his Brave Combat Federation (BRAVE CF) Bantamweight World Championship fight on March 11.
His opponent will be the formidable Brad Katona, the Canadian-Irish fighter who, since 2010, has a 10-2 record in bantamweight bouts; almost a mirror image of Kooheji’s 11-2 scorecard.
“I’ve seen a few of Katona’s fights,” Kooheji said, leaning back in a chair at the gym’s café. “But my preparation for the fight is not based on watching and re-watching footage of his fights.
“I’m preparing for the biggest fight of my career and it means hard days … good days. I am focusing on myself, on being fully prepared, on being ready. I enjoy this process!”
The youngest of six children, Kooheji said he drifted into MMA as a teenager after watching one of his elder brothers practising martial arts.
“I was in school and my brother, who is a few years older than me, took up karate quite seriously,” he explained, as behind him, a young athlete, fresh from a workout, concentrated on a laptop while a group of youngsters lounged around casually some distance away.
“So, I suppose, it was only natural that I follow in his footsteps,” Kooheji continued. “But I realised, very quickly, that I was drawn to MMA more than anything else. Once I started, there was no going back.”
A young man entered the café just then and called out Kooheji’s name. The MMA specialist looked around, waved a greeting in reply and returned to the matter at hand.
“I fought my first MMA fight at the age of 19,” he said. “But now, as I look back to what the sport here was like 10 years ago, it was a completely different experience and set-up. I knew how to fight, yes – but I had absolutely no clue about diet plans and training techniques.
“Judo and wrestling were more popular here at the time so there weren’t more than a handful of good MMA coaches around.”
Everything changed for him – and MMA in Bahrain – when Supreme Council for Youth and Sport first deputy chairman, General Sports Authority chairman and Bahrain Olympic Committee president Shaikh Khalid bin Hamad Al Khalifa stepped into the fray in 2015, creating KHK MMA, a holding company that eventually set up BRAVE CF.
“He has single-handedly revolutionised the MMA scene, not just in Bahrain but around the world,” Kooheji explained. “His support and encouragement to all the fighters has been invaluable. And, not many people know this: Shaikh Khalid also fought in a couple of bouts when Brave CF was initially founded!”
Now established as an international MMA powerhouse, Brave CF has organised global events around the world seen by millions of enthusiasts live and onscreen.
The organisation now boasts mixed martial artists from more than 40 nations across five continents and has hosted international combat weeks, featuring the best in the business from across the world, apart from other events.
Kooheji remains quietly confident about putting up on a good show of his own at the next big event in March.
“I don’t like to boast or make predictions,” he said, matter-of-factly. “It is part of the thought process I’ve developed on my journey in MMA over the years – not that I was given to showing off or being arrogant earlier, anyway.
“The most important thing it has taught me is discipline. Discipline rounds your life up: it provides you focus and clarity.”
And that, Kooheji said, is the reason he thinks more people, especially children, should take up the sport. “There’s a simple reason for that,” he explained. “Like I said, being disciplined is the best gift you can give yourself. Also, it can give people who are being bullied – as some children are in school; or even adults at work, or elsewhere – the confidence to defend themselves.
“We all know that bullies are often insecure and they take out their fear, or jealousy, on people they know can’t defend themselves. But the training and discipline that MMA would bring to their lives could aid both the people being bullied and the bullies themselves!”
He waved in greeting to another person who had just entered the café, before continuing. “I’ve been able to achieve so much in these past 10 years because of the discipline that MMA has given me,” he stressed.
He has, certainly, achieved quite a few historic firsts along the way: apart from now being the top-ranked bantamweight in the region, Kooheji was also the first Bahraini MMA fighter to turn professional.
He was the first athlete to be selected in Shaikh Khalid’s team and the first Bahraini to compete and win at an international martial arts organisation in Jordan in 2015. And, he was also the first Bahraini to fight at an international MMA promotion, organised by BRAVE CF.
Known as the ‘Pride of Bahrain’, Kooheji has only one thing on his mind right now: his upcoming bout with Katona.
“I just want to prepare for the fight as well as I can,” he said. “Winning or losing isn’t important at the end of the day. What matters is the attitude you bring to the event.
“I have lost a couple of fights and they taught me that I had to work even harder to be better; that sitting and sulking about losing wasn’t going to help me. So, yes, while I certainly want to win, what matters more – to me – is that I give my best.”
Kooheji is a man of the people ... and a man deserving of greater things.
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