Radeem Rahman: You Must Believe | Journey to Becoming Singapore’s first Professional MMA fighter

This adapted story is proudly presented in collaboration with Choke Clinch Crank Combat, a coffee table book that tells the stories of 25 fighters in Singapore.

Radeem Rahman is Singapore’s first professional mixed martial artist to compete in the esteemed ONE championship. He is a big believer in interdisciplinary training and has competed in Muay Thai, boxing and Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. He is also the proud young father of two beautiful children.

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Radeem Rahman may be a household name, but he is no stranger to failure.

“I fail a lot, actually. When I was young, I couldn’t be like all my siblings. They study, they get a degree at a normal age. But with me, it’s very different. I didn’t get the results my parents wanted. Even I feel like, ‘Wow, I’m a disaster man.’”

“It was super bad that I started to do a lot of odd jobs. You can name any job, every job I’ve done. I’ve done as a cleaner, I’ve done as a security guard, at just a young age you know? I worked 24 hours just to make sure that I have finance — not just for myself but to help my parents through.”

“And I feel like I let them down, I let the whole family down because I didn’t get what I want or what they want. It feels like I’m just not good enough.”

“But you know I always tell myself or the people who I train with that, ‘You shouldn’t give up’ because most people when they fail — whether they fail or in their work or in life, they’ll be like, ‘I’m done, my life is done’ you know? But actually, all this depends on you. Failure is important because it shows your true colours, and how you rise up again.”

“That’s why people that know me can’t believe it. Some of them, the cleaners like, ‘This is the kid you know, in newspapers, like in the show. This is the kid that carries the rubbish.’ And I feel super weird.”

“But at the same time I’m thankful because I want to show the people that if you go into combat sports, it doesn’t mean you have no future. It’s all about whether you want to make a change, you want the change for yourself.”

“Whatever the odds are, you must believe in yourself. Because everything starts by believing in yourself. If you don’t feel like you’re good enough, for sure when you put in the work, you don’t feel good in putting that hard work on anything, because your mind already says, ‘I’m not good.’ So you can’t. You must believe.”

• Copy: Andrea Yew
• Photograhy: Khairul Selamat

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