Cheick Kongo, Cyrille Diabate, Greg Babene, Mishal Abul
Every now and then I like to highlight Kuwaiti talent and achievements and I believe that Mishal Abul fits the bill. He is a partner at Paradigm Sports Management, a US based company that manages Football, Baseball and MMA athletes. I met Mishal through my blog sometime back and since I’m a huge UFC fan I was shocked to find out he was managing UFC stars like Michael Bisping and Chris Lytle among others.
Mishal was always into combat sports, he wrestled in high school back in the US as well as college. He got into MMA in 1998 because of the UFC and because of his trainer John “The Machine” Lober who was a pioneer of the MMA scene with a background in Jeet Kun Do, Grappling and BJJ. Mishal is probably the first Kuwaiti to train in MMA.
Jake Shields, Mishal Abul, Tareq Azim
I asked him about MMA in the region and if the UFC is considering bring The Ultimate Fighter to the Middle East like how they did TUF Brazil and the upcoming TUF India. This is what he had to say:
MMA is still way too young for the entire Middle East to recognize it, understand it and accept it. Fighting from a professional position is already here with Karate, Boxing, Muay Thai now they need to learn MMA, the best form of martial arts. There are already some locals or in the region who have trained and are becoming teachers.
Sending TUF to the Middle East is in the plans but not right now that’s because the mentality of the population within the Middle East is not the same as elsewhere with a history of combat sports which usually belongs to other large countries where it would boom immediately like Brazil, Russia and parts of Asia. But, I do believe the Middle East as a whole has some huge potential of breeding the best MMA competitors in the world. Parts of the Middle East strongly train in Karate, some other parts in wrestling or even Judo. Countries like Iran who are naturally strong could develop some amazing wrestlers which is the best base to begin with to enter MMA.
As a UFC fan I think it’s very cool to have a Kuwaiti managing UFC fighters. If you want to find out more about Paradigm Sports Management you can visit their website [Here]
12 replies on “MMA Manager – Mishal Abul”
word is hes the 5sec guy who called the police station at 4am hehehehehe..he should have gone and saved the laundry and get free laundry for life coupon Mish Mish Mish,
Essa- Ssssshhhhh now everybody will know. I dont need to save the laundry as its not my laundry. Also, i think the laundry chat should be another posting not this one.
dont forget kuwait already had its first mma event GFC and it went awesome.
Yes GFC had its event. I was there. I was actually quite impressed with the event & the fighters were pretty good. Great job GFC!
Great write up! Seems like an Interesting guy
Yeah he’s a very cool guy
Thanks guys. Im an ok guy. Shy at 1st.
“Countries like Iran who are naturally strong”
chuckle of the day. but i must say, guys from iranian descendents are REALLY strong, but a bit slow.
Does anybody know why they are strong and big?
GFC was good, even though there were some hiccups, but for the first local mma event, not counting the UFC affiliated one, it wasn’t bad. From all the people who talk about fighting here, I thought more people would have been there, or talked about it.
I wish there were more shows simliar to “Fighter Life”, the series that focused on Wanderlei Silva’s gym in Vegas, it went from selection to training, and the fights, no drama, just straight training and fighting.
Curious to see how the upcoming Bellator reality show will be.
Awesome! The more manly men in Kuwait the better.
LOL. Thank god there is only a few of us in Kuwait then.
I also want to add, the Fighters Only magazine 2012 MMA awards are coming. Please go to https://www.onlineawards.co.uk/fightersonly/home.asp & cast your vote. Vote for Paradigm MMA own Michael Bisping & Jessica Aguilar. Thank you all!