Battling to Save Malaysia's Oldest MMA Gym

The ringgit is plunging and businesses all over Malaysia are feeling the pinch. With the currency is trading at its lowest level in 17 years the country's oldest MMA gym is struggling to survive.

The Ultimate MMA Academy was founded in 2006 at a time when practically no one in Malaysia knew what mixed martial arts was. Since then this small camp in Johor Bahru has produced numerous fighters and a handful of champions who now find themselves without a permanent facility to train at.

Known colloquially as 'JB', Johor Bahru straddles the border between Singapore and Malaysia and is 330 kilometers south of Kuala Lumpur. It's an unlikely MMA stronghold but schoolteacher and mixed martial artist Melvin Yeoh has almost singlehandedly introduced the sport to the 497,097 population city.

He started Ultimate MMA nine years ago and has seen the sport grow from the fringes of the underground to the Malaysian mainstream,

"I started Ultimate MMA Academy in December 2006, I decided to rent a shop and started a very simple gym with only two punching bags and some basic mats made from cardboard. The number of students stated to grow so I eventually decided to rent a house to be my gym and also my home."

The Yeoh family home housed Malaysia's first and for many years only MMA academy for a brief period but eventually the Father of two had to move to a bigger premises,

"By 2010 the place was no longer suitable to be a gym so I used all my saving and moves to another new area eight kilometers away. From 2010 until August, 2015. That was Ultimate MMA Academy 2.0, I even rented another shop unit to make it a bigger gym."

During this period JB was firmly established on the Malaysian MMA map. Ultimate Beatdown, Yeoh's bespoke promotion, is currently the longest running organization in the country and is still going strong while last year one of his fighters became a national amateur champion.

On October 9th two Ultimate MMA students have big fights booked. Jing Yi Chong will be defending his middleweight belt at the Malaysian Invasion Grand Finale in KL. Tee Jac Yoe will be challenging for a 135 lbs title the same night while the previous day Yeoh himself has a fight booked, his first in nearly two years.

From an outsiders perspective the Ultimate MMA Academy would appear to be going from strength to strength but behind the scenes the fighters are struggling to even find a place to train,

"After the Malaysia ringgit stated to drop dramatically the economy was bad. A lot of foreign investors pulled out from JB and my shop owner was one of them. We had to close down the gym until we found a suitable place," Yeoh told Fightland.

Yeoh started out training as handful of students in what was basically his back yard. He knows all about taking a DIY approach to training but preparing for his tenth pro bout was not supposed to be like this. The Ultimate MMA fighters are forced to be resourceful as they get ready for what will be the biggest fight in many of their careers,

"We had to travel here and there for training, find any place to train and change the training schedule if necessary. Luckily we found someone willing to rent us a unit for reasonable price with the help of students, parents and friends but we have no mats, no bags and no cage. My boys and me have to do our conditioning at other fitness gyms."

Yeoh is signed to Asia's biggest MMA promotion, ONE Championship but many of his students are competing at the Malaysian Invasion tournament. It pits amateurs from all over the country together with the grand finale taking place in a big stadium in Kuala Lumpur every October.

Many of the fighters coming out of the country's capital are representing state of the art gyms and get to work every day with BJJ black belts and trainers from Thailand. The JB boys don't have these luxuries but Yeoh is proud that they are able to hold their own against Malaysia's very best,

"I don't think it's difficult for JB fighter to compete with Kl fighters even though we lack high level coaches in JB. The standard has been very similar and I think it's because in JB have a lots small events that fighters can get experience from and all of the JB gyms work together well."

Having access to amenities such as hot water, air conditioning and brand new bags and expensive mats does not automatically guarantee success inside the cage. Yeoh will just be hoping that he and his fighters can perform to their full potential next month despite the less than ideal nature of their preparation.

The Ultimate MMA Academy story serves as a reminder that the path to sporting success is rarely straight and narrow. As it approaches its tenth anniversary the camp can claim to have produced multiple champions but without a permanent location its long term future is in doubt.