MMA fighters excel at competition

LIONS Den fighters, Bunmi Ojewole and British Nzembele, walked out the ring with wins at the recent Megalodon Fighting Championships (MFC).

Bunmi “The Bone Bender” Ojewole, who fights in the female featherweight (61kg to 66kg) division went up against Muay Thai and won what she called a quick fight. “I had a game plan and I stuck to it!” she said.

The 27-year-old, whose style is Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), is a Nigerian-born South African doctor based in Durban. Bunmi started her martial arts journey in 2013 with light MMA and kickboxing and eventually graded up to blue belt. She changed focus and added grappling to her repertoire in 2014 and won gold in the beginner North American Grappling Association tournament in Orlando, Florida.

She started doing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and MMA in 2015 with a debut win via triangle choke and has been competing frequently ever since. She now has a blue belt under the Carlson Gracie BJJ system, training at Lion’s Den SA under coach David Verster. She has won four out of six amateur fights via submission and lost two. Her pro-am fight streak was three wins and one loss, which made her the Last Fighter Standing runner-up in 2016.

Bunmi juggles her martial arts life with that of a medical doctor, looking to specialise in orthopaedic surgery. This also requires it’s own rigorous training programme, albeit academic.

Bunmi will be fighting in the Extreme Fighting Championships (EFC) Africa in October and said she is excited to take it up a level.

British Nzembele was born in the Congo and has a judo background of more than 12 years. He moved to South Africa in 2007 and when he couldn’t find a place to train in judo, he trained with friends to keep fit.

He joined David Verster for a short time in 2012, before the club moved to Pinetown and it was too far for him to travel. He then started boxing with Mark Briston and won his first amateur fight.

“I was told I could do well in boxing and was a quick learner, so I joined another club to carry on with boxing. I joined Dave again in 2016 as I needed to train to fight and was very committed, I knew what I wanted and Dave said I was ready to fight,” he said.

British won his first grappling match in November, which was his first experience in the cage with another fighter.

“In 2017 I decided I needed to give more and put myself out there and started training hard. I train twice a day for six hours and it’s paid off,” he said.

British has competed in three fights this year, winning his first cage fight in March in a 17-second knockout.

In May, he won again in Cape Town and two weeks later at the MFC he won by knockout in the third round.

“I’m still training hard and looking forward to my next fight. I aim to turn pro and show the world what I can do!” he said.

To find out more about MMA fighting, visit www.lionsdensa.co.za.