Ramsey Nijem used a flying fist to accomplish his first objective, then part of the same appendage to achieve the secondary goal. Specifically, the palm of his hand.
That is where he held an enraptured crowd at the du Arena after bashing a previously unbeaten opponent into submission at the UFC Fight Night bouts in April.
First he connected with Beneil Dariush’s head, then he connected with the sold-out crowd of nearly 8,000 amped-up fans, all in the span of roughly three minutes.
Outgoing and animated, Nijem was handed a ring microphone, and among other endearing proclamations, gushed over the public-address system: “I’m here to win a title for the Middle East.”
Talk about a win-win scenario.
At that point, Nijem’s eardrums took a pounding worse than Dariush. In fact, it was hard to tell whether the first-round knockout or the subsequent message delivered by the Palestinian-American fighter drew more feedback.
According to the scorecard of one judge, namely Nijem, it was definitely the latter. It also did not hurt that Nijem, who studied marketing in college, was waving a Palestinian flag – which strongly resembles the UAE banner.
“Fighting is fighting and I have done it a bunch of times all over the world,” Nijem, 26, said. “But to have that kind of energy in front of a crowd that size, and to have that kind of support, was something that was unreal. Blown away.”
In fight parlance, this is known as a perfect combination – pummel your foe into unconsciousness, then seize the consciousness of the fans.
From the moment the fight with fellow lightweight Dariush (7-1) began, Nijem made all the right moves, recording a technical KO with 40 seconds left in the first round, a hefty upset that was accorded fight-of-the-night status by UFC officials. Three hours later, he was still sky high.
“I really want to represent the Palestinian people, Arab people, the UAE, the whole Middle East, in a good light,” Nijem said. “The news, you always see the negatives, this and that, fighting and war. I want to show that we’re more, that we accomplish great things and that we are a strong people.”
In the over-the-top UFC, where getting noticed is half the battle, Nijem clearly is blessed with the joint gifts of jab and gab. Not surprising, because – given his family’s pedigree as survivors – he was born for this profession.
Nijem’s father, Jamal, grew up in the West Bank in a notorious refugee camp outside Ramallah called Al Am’ari. The Nijem family made a pilgrimage back to the area a few years ago and the sights shook Ramsey.
Jamal Nijem and his nine siblings were raised in a two-room house, prepared and ate their meals outdoors, and lived within the shadow of the wall around Jerusalem.
Jamal immigrated to the United States in his teens, got a job driving a taxi in New York, then eventually started his own limousine company and moved to California.
Jamal fought for every penny he could muster.
“I am really lucky and blessed, man, being one generation from growing up with such hardships,” said Ramsey, who was born in the San Francisco area. “That’s all part of why I want to succeed. I’m blessed and I don’t want to waste it. I am really trying to achieve something.”
From the time he was in school, Nijem was preparing for a career in mixed-martial arts, well before he realised it. The second of three boys, he insistently followed around his brother Joseph, two years his elder.
“I was the youngest in a group of maybe five guys, so I got picked on a lot, to say the least,” Ramsey said.
“I was a really high-energy kid and, instead of giving me medicine like a lot of kids – Adderall or whatever for ADHD (Attention deficit hyperactivity disorder) – every morning I would run to school and do push-ups, pull-ups, and my dad made me do these workouts to calm me down, to burn the energy off.
“So pretty much my whole life, I’ve always been into training and fitness.”
He was a wrestler in high school and at Utah Valley University, which is not to suggest he could not defend himself while in a standing position.
“I had two brothers, and we fought hard,” said Nijem, who has an affiliation with the Red Dragon Gym in Dubai.
“Even when we were kids, we got in trouble, because we had an underground fight club at our house, when we were around 12 years old. I was always the kid looking for trouble.”
Unlike some of his brethren, Nijem is not an intimidating mass of muscle, busted cartilage or testosterone and, in street clothes, he has an easy smile and a quick wit that belies the brutality of his occupation.
This has generated some interesting anecdotes along his professional pathway.
When he first entered MMA, Nijem worked as a bouncer on weekends to help pay the bills. At 180cm (5ft, 9in) and about 78kg between fights, he hardly cut an imposing figure. Troublesome male customers seemed to gravitate his way, sensing vulnerability, compared with the other behemoth bouncers.
“They always seemed to give me the problems, because I was the smallest one,” Nijem said, laughing. “Obviously, training as a fighter, I could drag a guy out of the club a lot easier, because I was way stronger.”
Compared to most, the transition to MMA from wrestling happened quickly.
Nijem, clearly an extrovert, was picked to participate in UFC’s Ultimate Fighter television reality series, wherein prospects are culled and chronicled on a weekly basis, with a UFC contract on the line. Nijem made it to the finals of Season 13.
“You get a lot of exposure early in your career and a fan base right off the bat,” said Nijem, who lives in San Francisco.
“Most guys coming into UFC have to work a lot harder to find fans. I was lucky because it gave me a chance to fight in UFC when I was 23, so I didn’t have to wait as long as some.”
Dana White, inventor and ringmaster of the UFC circus, told Nijem that he needed to learn quickly if he was going to survive the migration from wrestling to mixed martial arts. The TV show put him on the fastest track possible. “It was such a blessing now,” Nijem said.
“I learnt how to fight and survive in the best organisation. Now I can be the best in the world.”
He has taken a few lumps along the way, losing two of his last eight fights by knockout, a helpless feeling that few fans will ever experience.
“Usually, you wake up on the mat, and you know exactly what just happened – the worst-case scenario for any fight,” he said. “Then you have to watch it later on [on tape] to see what happened. When they hit you, you feel a weird vibration, then you wake up. Pretty unreal.”
Watching his beat-down of Dariush and the semi-impromptu speech that followed, sent a tectonic-sized vibe through the announced crowd of 7,963, who were similarly knocked out by Nijem. With the UFC planning to return to the UAE within a year, he seems a lock to make the fight card.
After all, the UFC did not become the fastest-growing sport in the world by blowing obvious marketing opportunities. Nijem, who stayed in Dubai for a week after the fights, was awestruck.
“It was amazing, dude,” he said. “It was so awesome, I cannot wait to go back. It was like being in a futuristic movie. It’s desert, desert, desert, then this big, beautiful city.”
There he goes again – saying all the right things.
selling@thenational.ae
