‘I believe warrior blood runs through me,’ MMA fighter Anshul Jubli tells Wknd

As befits such a gym, Crosstrain Fight Club is a basement room in south Delhi with nothing much in it except thick, black matting on the floor and around the pillars, a heap of gloves and punching pads in one corner, a couple of heavy bags swinging from the ceiling, and a small, neglected section with a barbell and some weights.

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Anshul Jubli is on the mat, dripping sweat. It’s wrestling day at the gym, and he and his heavily muscled sparring partner are ripping it up, rapidly pulling moves at each other, slamming on to the mat with deafening thuds.

The lean 28-year-old from Uttarakhand is now India’s first mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter to secure a contract with the multi-billion-dollar UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship).

For anyone making a career as an MMA fighter, a UFC contract is the holy grail. These matches are some of the most-watched fights in the world, surpassed only by marquee boxing events. UFC’s MMA championship is the only one in the world with a $300 million-a-year media deal.

Jubli, who turned pro just five years ago, says the best thing about his five-fight deal, signed for an undisclosed sum, is that it has wiped out all his debt and ended his financial struggle.

“I lived on borrowed money for five years,” he says, relaxing in the back of his car after the heavy workout. “I would ask friends and family to lend me money for training camps, then fight and earn and pay them back. I couldn’t afford anything at all.”

How did a man who only began training in combat sports eight years ago blaze such a pioneering path?

“It really started with fighting on the streets,” Jubli says. “I was one of those kids, you know, restless, with too much energy and no idea what to do with it. I’ve been told that my people — Jubli means ‘from Jubbal’, a town in Himachal — were warriors. My father was in the Border Security Force. My uncles are in the armed forces. I believe that warrior blood runs through me.”

Jubli spent part of his childhood in a village called Bhatwari near Uttarkashi (the village was washed away in the 2013 flash floods). This is where his great grandfather had settled. His father’s job meant growing up in various places across India.

“I was mad about sports,” he says. “So, wherever we were, I picked up the popular sport in that place. In Bengal, it was football. In Bihar, kabaddi; kho kho somewhere else, volleyball in another place.”

In college, he was advised by friends and family to prepare for the armed forces. He was a good student, and his athleticism was beyond doubt. It was the perfect mix for a future officer. As part of his preparation, the young man began to focus more seriously on football.

He was 20 when he stumbled upon a funny video comparing footballers to MMA fighters: footballers clutching their feet and dropping to the ground at hardly a touch, unflinching MMA fighters with blood streaming down their faces.

“I knew nothing about MMA, but this fascinated me,” Jubli says. He was in Dehradun at the time, and walked into a small fight gym. “I was proud of my fitness, but the first day’s workout made me want to throw up. I was hooked!” he says.

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Within months of his introduction to combat sports, the coach at the gym recognised that Jubli had a gift for fighting, and took him to an amateur MMA event in Delhi. Against a far more experienced opponent, the rookie from Uttarakhand won.

“I don’t know how,” Jubli says, confusion still on his face. “But I know that I cannot describe the adrenaline rush of winning at hand-to-hand combat. There is nothing like it.”

He began obsessively studying the different disciplines within this gruelling sport: boxing, wrestling, Muay Thai, jiu-jitsu. He spent hours at the gym, working with a coach and a sparring partner; hours more at home, by himself, watching videos and tutorials.

“The physical work is not the hardest thing,” Jubli says, “it’s the mental work; the constant nerdy interest in learning, the ability to do that boring drill for hours and days until it becomes muscle memory. I have two big advantages. I am naturally athletic, and I have an insane interest in learning.”

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Five years ago, Jubli took a leap, moving to Delhi on borrowed money, in an attempt to turn pro. He knew that, as a newbie, it would be impossible to book a fight with a prestigious Indian pro-MMA league such as Matrix Fight Night (MFN). So he bagged a fight at an event in the Philippines, to try and get some experience under his belt.

It turned out to be a nightmare. He borrowed “a lot of money” to make the trip, only to have the event shut down by the police just before Jubli’s fight. He went to the organisers and demanded compensation. “They said, ok, fine, go back to your hotel room,” Jubli says. “After that they stopped taking my calls, then blocked me.”

Upset and confused, he thought he would work his way through the bad emotions at a boxing gym in Manila. Except he was put in the ring with an accomplished boxer who beat him to a pulp. With his mouth cut up and bleeding from the inside, his head pounding, Jubli spent a foodless and sleepless night in his hotel.

He arrived at the airport only to be told that he had booked a flight he couldn’t take, because it involved a transit stop in Malaysia and he didn’t have a visa for that. More desperate calls for money ensued, to rebook the flight home.

“I was so hungry, so dehydrated, I sat at the airport and thought I would die,” Jubli says.

Back in Delhi, he went straight to a hospital, and was admitted for a day. He decided to quit fighting. He called his sister, Ayushi Jubli, to say he was coming home.

“You said you would give it a year,” she reminded him, “and you’re just two months short. Why not hang on?” He did. A few weeks later, he bagged an unexpected fight with one of MFN’s champion fighters, after another fighter cancelled at the last minute. Against all odds, Jubli won.

He has won every MFN fight he’s been in (five in three years), earning himself the chance to fight in the Road To UFC event, a global competition that pits pro MMA champions from various countries against each other, to find the next batch of UFC fighters. He won all his fights at that event, leading to his contract.

The contract doesn’t have a timeframe, but Jubli is expecting his UFC debut and at least one more fight in the big league by the end of the year. Next month, he will begin preparing for that with a camp in the US or Thailand (a mecca for MMA fighters).

“I know myself. I know how fast I learn,” he says. “Four or five years down the line, I see myself as not just India’s first UFC fighter, but also India’s first UFC champion.”