Sam Chan One Of Malaysia’s Fastest Rising MMA Stars

Sam Chan One Of Malaysia’s Fastest Rising MMA Stars

Published on April 21, 2012 by The Coffee Boy in Gods FC, Malaysia FC, Opinion, Ultimate Beatdown

Sam Chan Shining Brightly in Malaysian MMA

Sam Chan: “I had three days to prepare for Gods FC.”

The stage was set at Gods FC’s debut event. Sam Chan stood across the cage from his opponent, Syed Hilman. The fight started like most fights that night, with both fighters swinging for the fences from the get-go.

And like most fights that night, it wasn’t long before we had a victor. A mere minute and 48 seconds into the fight, Hilman tapped to a bulldog choke. How much training did Chan have before getting into the cage that night?  Three days to be exact.

Sam injured his knee soon after his fourth fight at Malaysian Fighting Championship 4, but was determined to see it through and take advantage of the opportunity given to him by Will Chope and Mark Striegl to compete at the inaugural Gods FC event. By the time his knee was healed, he had 3 days left to prepare.

With the little time he had, his teams Muayfit and Titan Fight Team had to work him hard and fit in as much as possible to get him prepared. To make matters even more difficult, he has only so much time in a day he can fit in training.

Sam Chan, like many mixed martial artists today, has a day job to pay bills and make a living. He works with his father in the family business, involved in metal and stainless steel manufacturing. With a time-consuming day job, he has to muster up the drive to train and keep doing what he loves.

“I train with whoever is at Muayfit by the time I get there, which is usually around 6pm,” Sam says. He goes on to explain that he also represents Titan Fight Team, after having left Street Fight Wing Chun.

The second son in his family, he has his duties to help out in his family’s business. Between training with two teams, managing a social life, and booking himself fights, he has a job to do that gets him by, pays the bills, and funds his passion in martial arts.

“I started doing Muay Thai about four years ago,” Sam explained, “And last year I started learning and developing a ground game.” Interestingly enough, of his four wins, he was won three of them by submission.

Sam Chan had his first mixed martial arts fight back in September of 2011 at Malaysian Fighting Championship – Mayhem 2, losing to Melvin Yeoh (Chian Yik of Ultimate MMA Academy Johor Bahru) by way of judges’ decision.

“It was my first fight, so I was pretty nervous,” Sam laughed, “And my first fight of all fights had to be Melvin. He is really well-rounded, and I did not match up well against him.”

After the loss, Sam had another fight lined up about a month later against Mohd Faizul. He says that his coaches gave him pressure because he was not training regularly. He explains further, “I just told myself to go in there and play the game – win or lose, I just have to do my best.” He ended up winning the fight by a rear-naked choke in the first round.

With his first win, he had less pressure on him and started preparing to compete more regularly. After that fight, he went on to defeat J.J. “The White Plague”Meyer here’s an excerpt from our report on the event 

“The first round started off well with plenty of to and fro, there was much skill shown and lots of powerful punching and kicking, plus lots of work against the cage, about half way through the round it went to the ground and Sam ended up on top and no matter what he did JJ could not shake him off and of course Sam used the position to lay punches into JJ’s face.

Round Two followed the pattern of the first but this time JJ had the top position and he controlled Sam, taking his turn to give back some ground and pound. There were a few arm bar attempts and at the end of the round both were trying ankle locks but the bell stopped the round.

Round Three again followed the same pattern as the first except Sam took JJ down earlier and had more opportunity to ground and pound JJ. The remainder of the round was spent on the floor, Sam’s body controlling JJ’s with relative ease as both fighters tired.

When the bell rang both fighters stood up and embraced, they were classy guys from beginning to end. Going in to round three it was even and therefore it was clear that Sam had won round three and therefore the fight.”

Next, Sam beat Mohammed Sami in dominant fashion. With three wins in a row in such exciting fashion, Will Chope approached Sam and asked him to fight for the Gods FC debut. He jumped at the opportunity.

Now with the knee injury and lack of training, pressure was on Sam for this fight; he wasn’t about to mess up his biggest fight thus far. With only three days to train, he had to fit in as much as he possibly could, and hope it would be enough. It’s a good thing Sam has displayed good heart in the past, because he certainly needed it for this fight.