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Sidekick Academy kick ass at the US Open

Sidekick Academy, the local mixed martial arts training center just participated at the 2011 US Open Martial Arts Championships in Orlando, Florida. They ended up leaving with a total of 17 trophies and medals. This is how they ended up ranking:

MMA competition:
Nasser Alqattan 1st Heavy Weight Division
Abdullatif Alothman 1st Middle Weight Division
Abdulrahman Aljasser 2nd Heavy Weight Division
Mahmooh Geragh 3rd Light Weight Division

Continuous Sparring:
Abdullah Alameeri 3rd Over 170lb Division

Point Sparring:
Shaikha Alshuaib 1st Intermediate Belts Light Weight Division
Abdullah Almarta 3rd Begginer Light Weight Division
Abdulrahman Aljasser 3rd Intermediate Belts Over 170lb
Hamad Alnabhan 3rd Advanced Belts Under 169lb

Forms:
Abdulmohsen Albabtain 4th Master Black Belts Tradional Division
Hamad Alnabhan 5th Advanced Belts Division
Abdullah Almarta 2nd Begginer Belts Division

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu:
Nasser Alqattan 2nd No-Gi Middle Weight Division
Nasser Alqattan 3rd Gi Blue Belt Middle Weight Division
Abdulrahman Aljasser 3rd No-Gi Heavy Weight Division
Abdulrahman Ajasser 1st Gi Blue Belt Heavy Weight Division
Abdullah Almarta 3rd Gi White Belt Light Weight Division

I think that’s an incredible accomplishment, for more information you can visit the Sidekick Academy facebook page [Here]

44 replies on “Sidekick Academy kick ass at the US Open”

3ala raasi walla!!
never heard of them
al3an abo elkora ely 6aghat 3ala kelshay belreyatha eb hal deera

Congrats real men fighters , that what we are expected from our awesome coach AbdulMohsen Al Babtain , he is ligend in the fight area and he already planed for this achievments from long years ago and he finaly did it 🙂
Thank you guys for your effort and I knew you very will you desirve your excellant record.

Good Luck

question…how come u didnt mention anything about the fight that broke out between the kuwaiti and lebanese soccer national teams?? is it cuz it would make lebanon look bad??

so u only post about things that others dont post about?? prior posts of urs beg to differ..

anyway..it just seems like when theres a post that sheds a negative light on kuwait ur quick to blog about it even if 200 (and not just 20) other bloggers have blogged about it…i thought u’d show some neutrality and objectivity and mention one negative thing about lebanon in here…oh well

Spartan, thanks for your comments but as a regular reader yourself you must know by now that I do try my best not to post content that’s already been plastered on all the other blogs.

Yes sometimes I post stuff that does end up becoming a popular subject on other blogs but it very very rarely happens that I post something thats already popular across the local blogosphere. In this case with the Kuwait vs Lebanon fight since I don’t watch football I only found out about the fight through the other blogs. By then it was too late for me to post about it since it had already become a popular topic. Check this link to get an idea of how many blogs posted on this https://botamba.com/search/%D9%84%D8%A8%D9%86%D8%A7%D9%86

So I’m sorry because I was too late to find out about this fight but I’m not sorry for not posting it after a ton of blogs posted about it.

Regarding me being critical of Lebanon on my Kuwait blog, well what purpose would that serve? How would me criticizing Lebanon in a blog that’s focused on Kuwait help fix anything?

I criticize to get things fixed and not just for the sake of criticizing.

I have no problem criticizing Lebanon at all and in fact I did criticize Lebanon on this specific fight but on my Lebanese blog since no other Lebanese blog posted about this. You could read what I had to say here https://blogbaladi.com/admin/lebanon/seriously/

I criticize Lebanon on my Lebanese blog so it could reach the right people and hopefully get a problem fixed. Check out my other posts there as further evidence on this https://blogbaladi.com/admin/

I hope this clear things up and you realize that I am very neutral and very objective.

i’d understand ur point if there were no lebanese ppl reading this blog..but there are probably more lebanese ppl reading this blog than kuwaiti readers….especially in a country where the number of expats is more than twice the number of locals..and lebanese ppl constitute a huge chunk of the expats…so no..ur not very neutral and not very objective..but thanks for taking the time to respond

If you want numbers to back up my claim then here are some numbers.

Based on a survey I previously held on the blog out of which 1000 of my readers took part in:

6.5% of my readers are Lebanese
46.1% of my readers are Kuwaiti

1.1% of my readers are based in Lebanon
82.7% of my readers are based in Kuwait

I hope now you understand why I would rather post news related to Kuwait more than news related to Lebanon. But as I mentioned in my previous response, if you do want to read more about Lebanon you can do so on my Lebanese blog https://www.blogbaladi.com/

Honestly…Iam not on anyone’s side here, but I don’t see any criticism of the lebanese footballers on your post there. It just talks about whether we can fire guns or not.

ofcourse we KNOW that the figures are correct and a true representation of ur complete population..

u just want the last word..sure u can have it

Those figures are not meant to represent the whole population, those figures are supposed to be a fairly accurate representation of the blog readers.

In any case our side conversation is taking away from the achievement of Sidekick Academy here, so we should really move this conversation to private. Will email you now.

thats ok, u having issues with kuwait has become quite evident to me…i have nothing further to say..
i had my doubts in the past, but after this incident, its crystal clear

Spartan man i think you’re the one with issues in here.. you insist on turning this story around using all the wrong points, Mark said so many times that what ever is on other blogs will not end up here.. also as a lebanese (me) i think Mark is more Kuwaiti then anything.. the nostalgics and old stories and love that he hold for your country is not to be found on many many Kuwaiti bloggers or even none bloggers..

Hater’s gonna hate.
If anything Mark has been overly positive about Kuwait and tries to inform his readers about activities to do here, because there were a lot of complaints that Kuwait is boring, it’s just malls and restaurants etc etc. He blogs about ways to improve Kuwait and doesn’t just criticize the country.

Mark has never posted anything related to Lebanon or anything related to any other country, because it doesn’t directly relate to Kuwait. That football incident happened in Lebanon and he posted about it on a Lebanese Blog. It’s not like Mark’s readers are incompetent, they’re bound to read about the incident on another blog. So stop trying to find something negative, where there’s nothing to be found.

You don’t think that Mark isn’t shedding a negative light on Kuwait because you don’t see it from a Kuwaiti’s point of view.
I do agree that Mark usually backs up his criticism with suggestions of improvement, but that’s not always the case.

I mean, the only post I can think of that could even come close to showing negativity on Kuwait, was the one about the crazy lady wanting sex slaves. But besides that, Mark’s constantly been attempting to show the positive side of Kuwait, art shows, events, artists, musicians, and all that good stuff.

Congratulations. It makes a man proud to be a Kuwaiti. One question though; How come this was not covered by the local papers? If it wasn’t for Mark’s blog, I wouldn’t have known about it.

I hope it happens a lot sooner than you make it sound. I know they want to build a UFC sized octagon at Sidekick and I know they have a really good relationship with Royce Gracie and Abu Dhabi so I think it might happen in under 5 years. Currently I know of only a few fighters from our region who at one point in time played some role in the UFC:

Mostapha al-turk who is Lebanese
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mostapha_al-Turk

Karo Parisyan who is Armenian
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karo_Parisyan

Ramsey Nijem who is Palestinian
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramsey_Nijem

Amir Sadollah is Iranian
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amir_Sadollah

Manny Gamburyan is Armenian
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manvel_Gamburyan

Danny Abbadi who is Jordanian
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abbadi

There is also GSP’s head trainer Firas Zahabi, he’s Lebanese
https://www.mmafighting.com/tag/Firas+Zahabi/

We already have a professional Kuwaiti MMA fighter, here’s his profile on sherdog: https://www.sherdog.com/fighter/Yousef-Al-Hamad-74731

And here’s his fight: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-50aUbeCuk&feature=youtube_gdata_player

And another middle eastern fighter in the UFC is Kamal Shalarous from Iran. In Strikeforce there’s Gegard Mousasi, an Armenian raised in Iran. Both very successful.

Dunno if you’re a K-1 fan as well, but middle easterners pretty much dominate the sport. Badr Hari from morocco is one of the sport’s greats, an absolute berserker and an owner of some of the most incredible knockouts in all of combat sports. Gokhan Saki from Turkey is a lightning fast heavyweight whose combos are a work of art. Check both of them out. Although not quite as good, the Moroccan Chahid Oulad Elhaj’s fight with Mike Zambidis is considered an immortal classic, a fight to the death between two relentless fighters. Definitely check this one out too.

Hi Lulz,

Thanks for the links. I’m also a fan of K-1 and though I have full respect for your enthusiasm, stating that the M-E ‘pretty much dominate the sport.’ is a bit far from reality.

K-1 list of Champions:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_K-1_champions

Badr Hari was born and raised in Amsterdam and is a Moroccan-Dutch.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badr_Hari

Gokhan Saki was born and raised in Schiedam, Netherlands and a Dutch citizen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G%C3%B6khan_Saki

Grtz.,

Marcel

I realize that bro, but both fighters officially represent their respective countries of morocco and turkey. So while they both live and train in holland, officially they represent their original countries. Same thing with Chahid from morocco and Hesdi Gerges from Egypt. The best kickboxers in the world fight out of Holland without a doubt, but many of them happen to be middle easterners who represent their original countries. So what I said is sill kinda true :p

The fighters you mentioned are born and raised in Holland and official Dutch citizens. But only because Morocco and Turkey will never allow to change an own citizen and their offspring his- or hers nationality, they all have two passports. Even if they don’t want it, they cannot refuse their double nationality. Of course it can be convenient too for them for different reasons.
Because of this, we also have in Holland a Major of the second largest city Rotterdam who’s a Moroccan (Aboutaleb) and many MP- and Government members who’re next to Dutch, still also officially Moroccan and Turkish nationals.

I really don’t care, as long as they do a good job, as politician or fighter, they’ll have my full support!

So I agree with you that what you’ve said is still kinda true.
But please allow me to tease a little. “Who from the fighters on the list of K-1 championship is original from the M-E?”
(And don’t mention Badr Hari, cause he was disqualified in 2008)

Anyhow, my congratulations to the members of this Kuwaiti Team! Hope they will continue this success.

Well, Badr Hari is known to lose his temper but prior to each disqualification he was winning his fights. So technically he may be stripped of his title but in reality we all know that he’d otherwise beat his opponents quite handily.

As for the list of champions, I do see your point. I suppose “dominate the sport” is a bit of an exaggeration, but all I really meant was that middle easterners as an ethnic group within the sport are very noticeable and they’re usually either successful or at least tough as nails. Outside of k-1, there are middle eastern champions like Hesdi Gerges, an Egyptian who fights in “It’s Showtime”. In k-1, I think saki and Hari are guaranteed future champs. Hari is making a comeback this year after sorting out his legal mess so I guess we’ll just have to wait and see :). Also he’s more passionate about his Moroccan identity then ever right now after having submerged himself back home away from media attention. I think he’s going to have an awesome year. Overeem vs Hari 3 please!

Very well said. Also a match Overeem vs Hari would be great! I couldn’t agree more with you on that.

Congrats Sidekickers !!
You really Know how to bring it !! Olmpics coming in one Year get ready and get us some awesome MEDALS ! The Hard work you have been doing for years is paying you back with this GLORY !! BRING IT LEEEEEEEZ !! LOVE U ALL !!

Simply brilliant the founder of this club deserves a national award from sports ministry for single handedly bringing a ton of medals to Kuwait. My heart goes out to each and every fighter and their trainer for all their efforts. Let this mark the beginning in kuwaiti sports era. Applause.

Mark, spartan thanks for ruinig this post with your petty argument and conter explanations. Take a brake and lets congratulate our top guns on their feat. Take it outside dudes.

Where were these guys when the fight broke out between Kuwait and Lebanon’s friendly soccer game 2 days ago? Gun fire….seriously???

HAAAAAYAAAAAAAAH!!!

This is great news. its an amazing accomplishment for all the people involved in it. i hope they start getting backed up by our government.

No. I hope they don’t. Because then you will get politics involved and with too many politics it will go down the drain. Want an example, take a look at our football scene.

Thanks for the post. It’s simply because of the dedication and infinite support from the coach the his assistants.

CHeerz

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