Before discovering MMA, the “Jungle Cat” Muhammad Aiman already had plenty of fights under his belt.
When he was young, Aiman grew up in a number of Malaysia’s metropolitan areas, but at the age of fifteen, his parents moved back to Negeri Sembilan. Unfortunately for Aiman, the return to his roots was not a welcome one.
“I was the city kid that moved to a village,” the 22-year-old recalls. “People hated city kids, so they always tried to bully me. I did not like that. I had a fight almost every month.”
As it turns out, Aiman was pretty good at these fisticuffs, never getting injured enough to draw attention from the people around him.
“I never told my mom, either,” he reveals. “Every Alpha at the school wanted to fight me.”
At 16, Aiman took up boxing. In spite of all the fights from the previous year, the “Jungle Cat” wanted to study the sweet science not for self defense, but purely recreation.
Two years later, boxing no longer satiated Aiman’s recreational and competitive fire. Turning to the Internet for ideas, Aiman stumbled on MMA courtesy of YouTube, and dove head first into training himself before embarking on an amateur career.
Aiman ran into other obstacles during his amateur career. He racked up an impressive 7-1 record before turning pro, but his toughest win came outside of competition — and against an unlikely opponent.
“[My parents] are really supportive now. In the beginning, not so much. Especially my mom,” he says. “She wanted me to continue studying and do everything that normal teenagers do.”
Aiman tried his hand at classroom life early in his amateur days. He studied sports management, but found the life of textbooks and note-taking unsatisfying. Where many students would tough out the course work to please their parents, Aiman decided to be honest with his mother.
“I did not even finish the first semester. I realized I could not do this for two and a half years. I did not want to waste any money, so I quit,” he says. “Now [my mother is] supportive. She is like my manager, for free.”
With parents in tow, Aiman made his professional debut last year, landing in ONE Championship after his first professional fight. He’s been red-hot since then, winning both bouts in the promotion. The latest was a second-round TKO victory over BJJ black belt Eduardo Novaes.
Following a short break, “Jungle Cat” returns on 21 April at ONE: KINGS OF DESTINY inside Manila’s Mall of Asia Arena. There, he will take on a game and undefeated Danny Kingad.
“I saw a couple of his fights,” Aiman says of his Team Lakay opponent. “He is a tough kid.”
Aiman does not have much of an opinion about Kingad. He opts to focus on his own game plan instead, and with all the battles he’s won leading up to this contest, “Jungle Cat” has earned the right to focus on his bright MMA future.
