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Muhidin Abubakar | Fighting The Fight For Himself & Thousands In Need
This is the story of Muhidin Abubakar, the undefeated 23-year-old professional Mixed Martial Arts prospect, who outside of the fight game, is fighting the fight for thousands of people in need.
It’s fair to say, MMA as a whole, the sport and the practitioners who take part, get quite a bad rap in and out of the media, from people who don’t follow it closely. Fighters can be and are often unfairly stereotyped for their work inside the cage, but what happens outside of the cage? Why are the stories and endeavours they undertake outside of fighting not told to the masses?
Before becoming a fighter, Muhidin Abubakar was “just a normal kid”, playing football with his friends and getting into fights. Now, he’s an undefeated professional prospect, fighting out of ESKF in London, with three wins via stoppage and not a sweat broken in the process. But that’s inside the cage. Outside the cage, he’s a generous character who strives to help others.
Explaining how he always wanted to do charity work abroad, the 23 year old was offered the opportunity to do just that in 2021: “I’ve always wanted to do charity work abroad, and it’s always been in my nature to help people when I can. As of actually starting to do it, someone asked me a year ago if I wanted to go and I took the opportunity. It was during the month of Ramadan, so it was perfect timing. Every time I come back home, I just can’t wait to go back.”
Muhidin’s first aid work was in Lebanon during COVID-19, where he has now visited four times to help with food, money, and other basic necessities. The heart-breaking reality is, that during the COVID-19 pandemic, the situation in Lebanon was frightful. Some people couldn’t afford relevant healthcare, which in many cases, led to people dying.
“It affected the people there a lot, some people were really suffering and then when they would get COVID, either they had to take debts to get medical attention, or simply just couldn’t afford it and a lot of people were dying due to the lack of healthcare.” he said.
The economic crisis in Lebanon has been going on for many years now with Lebanon facing their worst socioeconomic crisis in decades. According to UNHCR, Lebanon hosts the highest number of refugees per capita worldwide.
“It’s a very under the radar place in terms of their problems, people don’t know their economic situation and how bad it was during COVID. The exchange rate when I was there in April (2021) was £1 would give you 15,000 (Lebanese pound), and now a year later it’s 32,000, whereas 2-3 years ago it was 2,000.
“And then you’ve got a lot of refugees there from Syria and Palestine who have been through a lot as well, so there’s too much work that needs to be done there.” Muhidin said.
Muhidin returned to Lebanon at the end of April this year during Ramadan, once again to help in any way possible. Not only does Muhidin help with supplies, but he is also the friendly face that a lot of children and families in need look forward to seeing. In many cases, they can’t go to school and don’t have many interactions.
Although it may not seem like it’s the case, there are several fighters throughout MMA that outside of the cage, show their selfless generosity. Another example being UFC Lightweight, Dustin Poirier. In 2018, the Louisianan set up a non-profit organisation, ‘The Good Fight Foundation’. In the past, Poirier has auctioned off pieces of his fight worn kit like gloves and shorts, and then donated the money to his Good Fight Foundation.
Both fighters are undoubtably at different parts of their professional fight careers. But despite that, they both have a common goal outside of becoming the best fighter in the world, and that is to help people who need it.
The whirlwind surrounding Ryan Garcia’s victory over Devin Haney last weekend is just beginning to settle down but it seems the controversial boxer is intent on staying in the headlines as he eyes UFC champion, Sean O’Malley.
The bizarre lead up to the fight with Haney was plagued with erratic behaviour on Garcia’s part, rumours of a mental breakdown, signs of alcohol and drug issues, and generally controversial behaviour. Garcia missed weight by 3.2lbs, and appeared to chug a beer on the scales during the weigh ins.
Entering the fight as an underdog, Garcia surprised everybody by dropping Haney three times and emerging victorious by majority decision. After the fight, Garcia insisted he drank and smoked every day in the build up to the fight and still picked up the win. This shocking turn of events has now opened up a variety of possible lucrative match ups for Garcia going forward, and it seems one MMA superstar wants a piece of that action.
The UFC hasn’t sanctioned a boxing crossover bout since Conor McGregor faced Floyd Mayweather back in 2017. ‘Suga’ Sean O’Malley has long campaigned for the opportunity to test his striking skills against Garcia, and this week on his podcast The Timbo Sugar Show, he insisted that the UFC have already given him the green light to seek out some opportunities in the boxing ring:
“A boxing fight’s possible for sure. I’m not there yet. I’ve still got to become bigger. Two more f*cking sick performances, then we’re talking about being able to do it.
O’Malley continued: “They told me ‘You can do a boxing fight, 100 percent, if it makes us enough money’. The option is there, it just has to be able to make enough money. But Ryan being a f*cking freak like that, you need two A-sides to make a f*cking Floyd v Conor fight”.
Ryan Garcia tweeted an image of himself and O’Malley this week with the caption: “RAINBOW CACA BRAIN. WANTS TO BOX. BE PREPARED TO BLEED RAINBOW”
RAINBOW CACA BRAIN
— RYAN GARCIA (@RyanGarcia) April 22, 2024
WANTS TO BOX
BE PREPARED TO BLEED RAINBOW pic.twitter.com/GGrvV7ZSCH
Sean O’Malley became the UFC’s bantamweight champion when he knocked out Aljamain Sterling at UFC 292 last August. He then defended the belt and avenged the only loss on his record when he dominated Marlon Vera over five rounds at UFC 299 in March.
The next step in the fascinating UFC journey of Alex Pereira remains to be seen. ‘Poatan’ pulled off a sensational knockout finish over Jamahal Hill in the first round of their main event bout at UFC 300 to defend his light heavyweight belt.
In his post-fight interview, the Brazilian called for the opportunity to compete at heavyweight at UFC 301 which takes place in Rio De Janeiro in just a couple of weeks. UFC president Dana White seemed unenthusiastic about that idea, however, and it seems now that the dust has settled after 300, Pereira is a little more willing to take his time before signing up for his next fight.
In an interview with MMA Fighting’s Trocacao Franca podcast, Pereira was asked if he’d rather defend his 205lb title again or test the waters in the heavyweight division. He responded:
“It’s hard to answer that. I haven’t thought too much about it yet. If it’s a longer period of time, I’d obviously rather defend my belt. If it takes too long and I fight at heavyweight and there are injuries, when am I going to defend my belt? I don’t want to hold up the division.
I was imagining the best-case scenario when I called for a heavyweight fight at UFC 301, but I have two broken toes. Both feet are f*cked. It’s complicated. I don’t want to hold up the light heavyweight division. A cool scenario would have been fighting at heavyweight at 301 and then giving the opportunity to someone to fight for the light heavyweight belt next. I think that would have been cool”.
205lb contender Magomed Ankalaev has called for a fight with Pereira on the UFC’s October pay-per-view card in Abu Dhabi, but ‘Poatan’ brushed that idea off instantly, saying:
“I don’t want to fight at the end of the year. I want to fight sooner, so maybe that shows he won’t be ready. I don’t know why he said that. This guy is complicated”.
If Pereira manages to get another win under his belt and is ready to go again before the end of the year, he said he would much rather compete on the Madison Square Garden event in November, which is closer to his current home in Danbury.
“It makes total sense” he said. “Wait one more month and I’m fighting at home? It’s so much better”.
ONE Championship’s striking roster has continued to flourish in 2024, and it got even stronger this week with the announcement of another elite kickboxer putting pen to paper in the world’s largest martial arts organization. Japanese megastar Masaaki Noiri has officially inked a deal with ONE, and he’s set to add further depth to the stand-up ranks.
Noiri is a former two-division K-1 World Champion and Grand Prix Champion, and he’s also a former WBC Japanese Muay Thai Champion.
Fighting in ONE will allow him to switch between the two sports whenever he wants, and this is an exciting prospect for the 30-year-old.
“As ONE officially announced, I have signed a contract with ONE Championship, the highest stage for striking. If I want to pursue being the strongest in the world that I believe in, this is a stage I have to challenge on,” Noiri said.
“I believe ONE is the ultimate stage for striking, so I wanted to challenge myself in that ring. I’m pursuing to be the strongest in the world through martial arts, so I chose this path to test if the current Masaaki Noiri can make it in ONE.”
It would be remiss of ONE’s hottest new signing not to have World Title ambitions as he embarks on his new journey.
However, along with gold, Noiri’s looking to show the world what strikers from his country can do, and he hopes a world-class compatriot can help him in that mission.
“[My plan is] to definitely win the ONE world title,” Noiri said.
“Not just me, but together with Takeru Segawa. And we’ll prove the strength of Japanese fighters to the world.”
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