- 9/14/2023
Mohammed Yahya is all set for an unprecedented debut at UFC 294, slated for next month. This groundbreaking moment will mark him as the inaugural Emirati fighter to step into the UFC arena. Hailing from Dubai and aged 29, Yahya has officially joined the ranks of the world's premier mixed martial arts promotion and is poised to make his inaugural appearance at UFC 294, set to take place at the Etihad Arena on October 21
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SportsTranscript
00:00 This fighter got into the cage with a full-blown injury,
00:02 limping into the cage and still won the fight.
00:06 - UAE Warriors, Arabia Lightweight Champion.
00:10 - When Mohammad Yahya began his training at the age of 14,
00:13 he faced a challenge.
00:15 There were no MMA gyms in Dubai, but he never gave up.
00:19 And just last week, a groundbreaking moment.
00:24 - Hi, my name is Mohammad Yahya,
00:25 the first Emirati to be signed to UFC.
00:28 - His determination led him to cross paths
00:30 with MMA trainer and UAE gym owner, Tam Khan,
00:34 where he honed his skills and began his fighting career.
00:38 - We always had a dream that we'll make
00:40 the first ever Emirati fight on a big stage.
00:43 And through hard work and perseverance and dedication,
00:46 alhamdulillah, the dream come true.
00:48 - If you could fight someone, who would it be?
00:52 You have to look in this camera, you have to call them out.
00:54 - First, I have a very tough opponent in front of me.
00:57 After I beat him, I fight for someone else.
00:59 - Hi, Mohammad Yahya.
01:06 First of all, congratulations on being the first Emirati
01:09 to be signed by the UFC.
01:11 How do you feel?
01:12 - Thanks so much.
01:14 I'm feeling great.
01:15 Obviously, this is an opportunity of a lifetime,
01:17 something I've been looking forward to my whole life.
01:19 Kind of visualize being in the UFC
01:21 and now it's actually happening.
01:22 I thought it would have been earlier,
01:23 but everything happens at the right time.
01:25 So I'm really happy I get to showcase my skills
01:28 in the highest platform in the world.
01:30 - Yeah, so how are you finding all this
01:32 like newfound media attention and all this kind of stuff?
01:34 - Finding it great.
01:36 I've been in UAE, I'm the UAE champion of Arabia.
01:38 So I kind of get a lot of media,
01:40 doing a lot of media week and interviews
01:43 and lead up to the fight, they come and film me.
01:47 But obviously now it's way more because it's the biggest step
01:49 and it's history being made right now.
01:51 - Are you finding it distracting or is it okay?
01:54 - I'm never distracted.
01:55 I do my training and then in between,
01:57 while I'm recovering, I do the media.
01:59 - So tell us a little bit about you.
02:01 Tell us what fueled your determination
02:04 to continue fighting in the sports.
02:06 This is one of the hardest sports in the world.
02:09 - I don't know, when I was a kid,
02:10 I was just, I didn't really like school.
02:12 I had a lot of anger in me when I was a kid.
02:14 I don't know where from.
02:15 I had a great childhood and everything.
02:17 And me and my brother used to watch fighting on TV
02:20 and I kind of fell in love with the sport.
02:24 Like a kid would fall in love with playing football
02:26 or something, but our sport's just very aggressive.
02:28 It might look crazy and stuff to you,
02:29 but at the end of the day, it's just a sport.
02:32 - How do you keep yourself mentally fit
02:35 as you are physically fit?
02:37 Are there any kind of morning rituals?
02:39 - Yeah, the biggest mental state fit for anyone,
02:42 I feel, in this world is stops depression and everything.
02:46 And it's really easy.
02:47 It's just praying and having faith in God.
02:49 And that takes you a really big step in life
02:52 and protects you from all evil,
02:54 protects you from all negative energy.
02:57 - Yeah.
02:58 So I realize a lot of MMA fighters are quite religious.
03:03 What do you think is the intersection
03:04 between being such a devout Muslim or a devout Christian,
03:08 whatever the religion is, and MMA as a discipline?
03:11 Is there some kind of relation?
03:12 - In our religion, it's not.
03:15 No one really knows if it's allowed to fight
03:16 in our religion, but it depends how you take it,
03:19 how you see it.
03:20 So if you see it as in a sport
03:22 and you're not trying to go to hurt people,
03:23 even though that's what we're doing.
03:25 It's a big part of being strong mentally
03:29 and stepping out and just leaving the outcome up to God
03:34 and having faith in God.
03:36 Knowing that you did your time, you did your hard work.
03:38 Now the rest is up in God's hands.
03:40 - So there's a huge element of letting go
03:43 once you're in that ring, right?
03:45 - Yeah, once the doors are closed,
03:47 just kill or die, literally.
03:51 - And you have to have so much faith also
03:54 in the work that you've done prior to that.
03:57 - Yeah, like this fight's coming up on the 21st of October.
04:01 I've been training since March,
04:02 so that's more than six, seven months.
04:04 I've even traveled for my training camp,
04:06 so I'm in really good shape now,
04:08 and you can see how much hard work
04:10 that needs to be done.
04:12 - Amazing.
04:13 So take us a little bit back.
04:15 Take us back to your childhood
04:16 when you first started MMA at the age of 14.
04:19 What was one of the biggest struggles?
04:21 'Cause I heard that there weren't that many MMA gyms
04:25 back in the day.
04:26 How did you train?
04:27 - The biggest struggle was to find an MMA gym,
04:29 and there was literally none when I was at the age of 14.
04:32 So we started in a kung fu gym in some school,
04:35 in a dojo, you know?
04:38 But I learned a lot of stuff there,
04:40 to be disciplined, like the hardship,
04:43 like just discipline of the whole fighting game.
04:47 And then Tom Khan eventually came along.
04:49 He opened the first MMA gym, which was Contender MMA.
04:52 I'm not sure what year.
04:53 And then a few years later,
04:54 he opened the first Dubai Fighting Championship.
04:57 So I ended up joining in that,
05:00 and semi-pro contest,
05:01 ended up winning my two first fights.
05:03 And then after those two fights,
05:06 went to pro, but it was really hard to find fights in Dubai,
05:09 and I had to travel for my amateur fights,
05:11 go to the UK and Jordan and all these countries
05:14 to actually get fights.
05:16 - Yeah, so who supported you on this journey?
05:19 You know, the travel, the, you know,
05:22 you, this is you doing this full time.
05:25 So who has been your biggest support?
05:27 - Yeah, back in the day, it was obviously my family.
05:30 They supported me.
05:31 They see how dedicated I was.
05:33 And my dad's a big sports man.
05:35 He loves football.
05:35 He loves all sports.
05:37 And he see how dedicated I was.
05:38 So I told him school is not for me,
05:41 even though he tried to a few times,
05:42 I told him there's no way, there's no point.
05:45 And then he see how fully committed I was,
05:47 and I kept making him proud
05:50 of all the big performance I was winning.
05:52 And yeah, so he supported me a lot through my training.
05:56 And then now I am supported by many people,
06:00 DCT of Abu Dhabi Travel and Tourism,
06:03 Abdelmanam, His Excellency, Tam Khan,
06:06 he supports me on my training with everything I need.
06:09 So I'm blessed, I should say.
06:10 I'm privileged to be fighting in the UFC
06:12 and representing my country.
06:14 - So tell us a little bit about your background.
06:16 You are half Emirati and half British, correct?
06:19 - Yeah. - Yeah.
06:20 - Nice, and you grew up, where did you grow up exactly?
06:23 - I grew up my whole life here since I was a kid.
06:26 My mom and I got married like 45 years ago.
06:29 So she's lived here her whole life, basically.
06:32 And yeah, I don't really go much back to the UK,
06:36 just I used to go compete there.
06:38 And then mostly in UAE.
06:42 - Yeah, so let's talk a little bit about the MMA.
06:45 Have you met Dana White yet?
06:47 - No, no, no.
06:48 I'll meet him after the fight, hopefully.
06:50 - Yeah, hopefully, okay.
06:51 Once you meet him, is there anything that you have in mind
06:53 that you wanna say to him?
06:55 - I'm not sure, we'll go at the moment, you know,
06:56 it's still a long way around.
06:58 But definitely will say something to him
07:00 to get him notice me.
07:01 - Yeah, what do you think is your discipline?
07:05 Where do you shine, do you think?
07:07 - Well, I started off with MMA, so it's mixed.
07:11 So I'm good at Jiu-Jitsu, kicking, wrestling.
07:15 But where I would say back in the day,
07:18 there wasn't much competition for wrestling and Jiu-Jitsu.
07:21 Mostly just stand up kickboxing.
07:24 And when I traveled, so I was 22 and zero in kickboxing.
07:27 And then I said after time opened up
07:30 with the first mixed martial arts fighting championship,
07:33 I joined that.
07:34 So I would say kickboxing.
07:36 - Tell us a little bit about the toughest part
07:39 of this sport.
07:40 Obviously, when I was watching you guys train,
07:43 a lot of injuries could come out of what you're doing.
07:46 - Yeah, so the toughest part is obviously you need
07:48 to watch out for injuries.
07:50 And at the same time, it's a lot of work.
07:52 It's not just mentally, but physically on your body.
07:56 I've trained four, five hours a day.
07:58 Sometimes you have to diet and sleep is really necessary.
08:02 So I'm in bed by 10 or 11 maximum
08:06 to get my full growth hormone.
08:08 And it is kind of a lonely road,
08:10 but it's worth it.
08:12 - Yeah, I mean, I can see that you
08:16 are a super disciplined person, very focused.
08:19 How do you find time to relax and restore?
08:22 What do you do in your spare time?
08:24 - In my spare time, literally the only day I have off
08:27 is Saturday in training camp.
08:29 So I spend it in a spa, even like a lunch,
08:33 a full jacuzzi, sauna, and then just relax by the sun.
08:36 So I use my day off to recover basically
08:39 for the next week coming.
08:40 - Nice.
08:41 So tell us a little bit about the story of,
08:43 you told me that when you fought with the torn ACL once.
08:47 - Yeah, I was literally, I tore my ACL literally
08:50 in this area where we sat, right here.
08:54 - The curse area.
08:55 - So I was sparring two weeks before the fire got kicked
08:58 to the back of my leg and fully blew my ACL and meniscus.
09:01 How does that feel?
09:03 - Obviously I didn't take much notice of it,
09:06 but it happened in training.
09:08 I had to stop training, obviously.
09:09 And then I went to see the doctor and he told me,
09:13 "You have a full blown ACL."
09:14 And I'm sad that I remember looking at him and like,
09:16 "I've been training four or five months
09:18 for this fight, continuous."
09:20 And then he's telling me I can't fight.
09:22 So I'm like in shock.
09:23 And then I don't say anything, just take the results.
09:26 I leave, I was speaking to my coach and I said,
09:28 "Would you let me, you guys fight?"
09:30 And he's like, "Let's go, we put so much effort into this."
09:34 And there was no way, 'cause it was the first big deal
09:37 I ever got, the biggest fight of my life, you know?
09:39 And I never seen that many figures on the paper, you know?
09:42 So I took the fight and I ended up winning.
09:44 So it just shows to go that your mentality
09:48 really carries you in the sport.
09:50 - That's crazy, because that's just two months
09:52 after you tore your ACL.
09:54 - Two weeks after.
09:55 - Two weeks, okay.
09:56 Okay, don't do this at home, kids.
09:57 That's like...
09:58 (laughing)
09:59 - Being a full-time fighter is demanding.
10:01 It requires a lot of focus.
10:03 Do you have any pre-fight rituals or what do you do?
10:07 How do you manifest, do you visualize?
10:08 What do you do exactly before a fight?
10:11 - Oh yeah, there's a lot of visualization,
10:12 but it's not just the fight week,
10:14 it's throughout the whole training camp.
10:16 So visualizing, just walking out,
10:19 the referee, the people putting Vaseline on your face,
10:24 just checking if you have your protection, your mouth guard,
10:27 just soaking up the energy of the crowd
10:29 as you're stepping in the cage.
10:30 You gotta announce, which is gonna be crazy,
10:32 is my whole life I've been seeing Bruce Buffer
10:35 announce fighters, the legend of the sport.
10:37 So finally he's gonna announce my name in the card
10:40 and probably gonna give me goosebumps,
10:42 but yeah, visualize everything.
10:44 - Amazing, what's your walkout song?
10:46 - I'm not sure about that.
10:47 I'm gonna leave it up to a few people,
10:49 see what they decide.
10:50 - Amazing, and if you could fight someone,
10:54 any person of your choice, who would it be?
10:57 You have to look in this camera,
10:58 you have to call them out.
10:59 - One step at a time.
11:02 First, I have a very tough opponent in front of me.
11:05 - Okay.
11:06 - But after I beat him, I probably call someone out.
11:09 - Nice, just before we go,
11:10 tell us why do you do this sport?
11:13 It's so dangerous, it's so hard, why do you do it?
11:15 - It's not really that dangerous.
11:17 It's just we love, it's basically an art, I would say.
11:20 It's like an artist, why they draw,
11:22 why a musician would sing.
11:25 We just express our feelings,
11:26 but at the same time, we really love it.
11:28 And I don't know why we fight, but we just enjoy it.
11:33 - You just need to do it, huh?
11:34 - Yeah.
11:35 - Amazing, thank you so much for being with us today,
11:36 and good luck on October 21st, right?
11:39 - Thanks so much.
11:40 (upbeat music)
11:43 [BLANK_AUDIO]
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