00:01Who's the fighter behind India's newest MMA medal?
00:05The question found its answer at an airport in Prayagraj,
00:08where 23-year-old Khushbu Nishad stepped out with a medal from Lebanon
00:12and before posing for cameras or celebrating the win,
00:15quietly put it around her father's neck and broke down.
00:30This gold at the 2025i MMAF Asian Championship did not come easy.
00:35Khushbu defeated Tajikistan's Barfina Rehmatur Lozota in the Atomweight final.
00:41Khushbu later said she was 95% exhausted in the final moments until her eyes fell on one thing,
00:47her father's name written on her wrist.
00:53That name belonged to the man who once panicked after seeing a video of her getting punched during training.
00:58The same man who taught her Karate when she was younger.
01:02Khushbu was born into a simple family in Prayagraj.
01:05Sports came naturally to her,
01:07even as society questioned whether martial arts were meant for girls at all.
01:10At 12, she began learning Judo with her brother,
01:13then Taekwondo, then Karate.
01:16Somewhere along the way, she fell in love with mixed martial arts.
01:21Khushbu once mentioned that Uttar Pradesh could not offer the level of training she needed.
01:26So, in 2023, she made a quiet decision.
01:28She told her family she had a job transfer.
01:31In reality, she travelled to Hyderabad to train under coach Sheikh Khalid.
01:35She funded her dream by working for eight months at a Radisson hotel in Luthiana,
01:39saving money one shift at a time.
01:44The journey soon showed results.
01:46First came a silver medal at a national level amateur MMA tournament.
01:50Then came Asian gold.
01:52And when Khushbu returned home and hugged her father at the airport,
01:55both of them in tears, one thing became clear.
01:58The real strength she took into the cage was not technique alone.
02:01It was belief built over years, sacrifice and a father's name written where she could see it.
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