Kigali: James opio media day – interview
JAMES OPIO MEDIA DAY – INTERVIEW
JAMES OPIO
- Question:
Could you please share with us a short introduction about yourself and some of your notable achievements?
Answer:
“My name is James Bizimungu Opio, I was born in Rwanda but raised in Uganda. I have been doing mixed martial arts for about 7-8 years now that I have been training.
My first competition of mixed martial arts was back in 2017 which is about 8 years now. But now I started doing professional MMA fights. It’s now 3 years down the road. Because the other fights were amateur.
My first professional MMA fight was in Uganda and my first opponent was supposed to be Michel from South Africa. But he didn’t turn up for the event, so I had to face a Ugandan called Rodgers Munana of which I was able to submit him in the first round.
My second professional MMA fight was in Lagos, Nigeria, where I faced a guy called Abdulbasit and I was able to knock him out in the second round. My third fight was last year, I faced a guy called Cornel Thompson.
If we are talking about Martial Arts, I really believe that I am the best this time to represent Kigali.”
- Question:
Could you tell us about your upcoming fight against your opponent and what do you know about him?
Answer:
“My upcoming fight with my opponent, Isaac Omeda, of course I have been studying and watching his past fights in one zone tournaments that he also participated in. So Isaac Omeda is not going to be a new face to me, I have ever met him. I know him and I have been watching his fights and I have been preparing so well. We have a proper game plan and as a Rwanda fighter, we are taking it over.”
- Question:
How did you come up with this game, and what motivated you to join MMA? Answer:
“Growing up in Uganda, we came to Uganda when I was a baby. I lost my mom at the age of nine. From that age, life has not been so easy for me because also the community, the cousins, we had been fighting a lot as kids.
And me being the last born of my mom, the only way I could defend myself is learning how to fight. There was a guy who used to be our neighbour in that same part of Uganda, we started training as Kungfu and learning it as kids, at the age of 14 and 15 is when I also joined a professional team that was doing Taikwondo.
I started training in Taikwondo and then I picked an interest in fighting. I participated in some of the Taikwondo tournaments and I am a gold medalist in Taikwondo.
How do I start being in mixed martial arts? When I participated in some of the fights in Taikwondo, Karate and some of the boxing tournaments. When we get into clinch positions, I would really feel that we are limited. After punching someone, when someone clinches you, the ref has to come and break you up.
So, I could see that there are a lot of things that you could do but it’s limited. Then boom one day, when I was watching something on Supersports, I landed on UFC fights and then it was a complete fight to me. It was my first time to watch a mixed martial arts fight and then
there was wrestling, there was grappling, of course, I could not differentiate that this is wrestling and this is grappling but I could see it as a real complete fight which had a local kind of fighting.
Where people are fighting from the stand up to the ground, so if you are beaten you are really beaten, so there is no excuse. Because with boxing their rules are no clinching, Taekwondo their rules that seemed limiting.
So when I watched those fights, I picked interest and I was like oh wow, this is really what I need to do if I am to remain as a fighter, I really need to do MMA. Lucky enough in 2016, there was a lady called Jennifer, she was a marine from the American Embassy in Uganda, and she opened up the First Grappling Club in Kampala and I was among the first students who joined.
She used to train us in Jiu Jitsu so when I started learning it and grappling, that introduced me to mixed martial arts, there is grappling, wrestling and standup fights. Since I had a background in Taikwondo, and Karate, I started training in Jiu Jitsu.
There was one time an American fighter called D1, I attended his seminar towards the end of 2016, he was a professional mixed martial artist. He told us if you want to participate in mixed martial arts, start training in different kinds of disciplines of martial arts such as kickboxing, boxing, and wrestling so that when an opportunity comes, you can easily jump in and that’s how I started preparing myself for mixed martial arts.”
- Question:
Where do you want to take the game in the future and where do you see yourself? Answer:
“I see myself as a world champion and one time representing as the best featherweight champion in the world. So, this is just the beginning of my journey. There are a lot of challenges but I see myself in the future as the number one fighter in the world when the time comes.
Because my goal is getting as high as I can, so long as I am supported. I am a very dedicated guy and I am always watching my training and improvement. If you watch my fights from the first fights to where it’s going now I am improving myself in every fight and I believe if I get enough support and training in the best places where it is needed.
I can make it up to be one of the best fighters, because I believe that champions are not born but they are made and I believe that I am one of those champions that are going to be made.”
- Question:
Who is your biggest motivation like inside or outside the cage? Who do you fight for and what do you fight for?
Answer:
“I have a family to fight for, I have 2 daughters and sons. So, everytime that I am in the cage I am not only fighting for myself, I am fighting for them. I am fighting for their good living, I am fighting for that they get a good education, that they get a good life, and that they are provided whatever they need. They motivate me whenever I feel like giving up because sometimes with training for MMA, it is not easy, especially when you break down you start thinking of looking for any other job and find a way for surviving. But then when I think of my daughters and people who are surviving through me. It gives me a bigger reason to push harder and harder.
When I am fighting it’s not only for myself and my kids, I am really fighting to make sure that I make my mom proud even though she is no longer here, my kids proud and my generation proud by being the first icon there to set a good example for them in MMA.”
- Question:
What does it mean to represent your country on a continental stage, and representing Rwanda do you feel you have added pressure from the crowd? Answer:
“I am totally proud to be in the cage this time, and how it feels, it is everything to me. In this fight for me, I am going to put my everything because I believe that if my mom was alive, she would be the happiest person to hear that finally I am getting back home not only to visit and know the place where I was born but to represent my home land, my home country, my people in the cage as their fighter.
So this really makes me feel so good, I am feeling happy and it is going to be one of my biggest achievements because that is the place where I was born. I am getting back home happily and strongly. That’s why I am putting all my best into the training, making sure that I deliver the best in this fight.”
- Question:
What has been your biggest challenge in your career as an MMA fighter and how did you overcome it?
Answer:
“The biggest challenge is that I have been supporting myself, I have no sponsorship. So, everything that I am doing, I am doing it on my own. I am raising money for the coaches who are training me, every camp that I attend for my training, I am struggling to make sure that I raise finances to pay for my training, pay for my nutritionist, actually paying for everything is the biggest challenge. Because sometimes, balancing work and training is really something very hard. I have many friends in West Africa and South Africa who are doing MMA.
When I meet them and I talk to them, they tell me that they don’t work at all. They are really focused on only training and that makes them a step ahead of me because I have to work and then from work I have training.
Sometimes, when you leave training you leave when you are really exhausted and you have to push yourself. So, the biggest challenge in this journey has been facilitation. But despite all that I have always sacrificed myself so that I don’t give up and I keep pushing. I know one time and one day my dream will be fulfilled.”
- Question:
Can you share with us about your training camp and what are the areas you are focused on?
Answer:
“The areas that I am focusing on in this camp are standup and wrestling since I know that my opponent is also a good standup fighter but of course there are gaps that I have seen in his fighting. In my camp now, I have a kick boxing coach and wrestling coach.
So we are completely focusing on full combat fighting which we are doing with basically boxing, wrestling, and kickboxing. So this fight is going to be a whole complete MMA fight.
With my camp we are preparing a complete MMA fight. It’s going to be a ground fight, a standup fight, we are going to go everywhere with this fight.”
- Question:
Can you describe yourself as a fighter?
Answer:
“I would describe myself as a freestyle fighter. Because, I can grapple, I can wrestle, I can box, I can kick. So, I choose to take the game according to what my opponent is good at.” 10. Question: Compared to your opponent, where do you think your strengths and weaknesses are? Answer: “Compared to my opponent, I think my strength is going to be more in grappling and even boxing. I don’t think his boxing is better than mine.”
- Question:
Can we get a prediction, because we saw in the last PFL Africa fight all the fighters from Africa are very powerful and very exciting. How do you predict the upcoming fight and how do you think it’s going to end?
Answer:
“It’s going to end by either a knockout or a submission. And probably this fight is going to end in the first round, if it does it will be in the second round. But I am finishing this fight in the first round.”
- Question:
What are you asking for from your fans? What do you need from people from Rwanda?
Answer:
“From my people in Rwanda, what I want from them is to buy tickets in very big numbers and come to support me. It would really be lovely to see you all around the cages as we put up the best show.
I believe if my people back home in Rwanda come to support me at BK Arena. You can also print T-shirts, and have my photos behind it. Come supporting me, I am going to be the strongest when I see you guys coming to support me in big numbers and I will perform my best when I know that my people are here supporting me. Secondly,
I would really ask my people back home in Rwanda to kindly accept me back home and welcome me. I grew up outside but genetically I am Rwandan, even though culturally I grew up in Uganda. So, kindly welcome me back home and teach me my culture and let’s win this fight together.”
- Question:
Where do you see the future of MMA in the African continent in the next 5 or 10 years?
Answer:
“I would like to thank the first PFL Africa, as it is the first professional fighters league to come to Africa. This is a very big opportunity for us and this gives me a lot of courage to encourage the youth in Africa that in the next five to ten years MMA is going to be something very big in Africa.
I believe in Africa, we have very good and talented fighters. Apart from only talent, I believe who is fighting is not only talent, but it’s hard work. And Africans are always hard workers. I believe the one thing that is still missing in Africa is we need to make sure that we are building a system that is going to support our fighters in the African continent.
If these fight leagues are now starting to come, like now PFL has already come to Africa, this is going to really encourage a lot of fighters to keep training more and working hard to make sure that we get to the biggest global stage in the world.
Francis Ngannou has represented us very well, and we are coming up there, so… I believe in the next 5, 10 years, where I see the future of Africa, Africa will be back on top of the global stage, because we have very good fighters, and they are talented, and they are hardworking. So when we support them, and we keep pushing them, finally, Africa will get back to the top again.”
- Question:
What advice can you give to young people who want to be great fighters?
Answer:
“If you don’t have discipline, you’re not going to make it. Discipline is not only about respecting elders; it’s about respecting yourself and all things that you do. Discipline is the key.
If you have discipline, it means you are going to set up goals, and when you set up those goals you have to discipline yourself to make sure that you work hard to achieve them. I know that the biggest challenge with our young generation is that they always say {I want to do this, I want to do this but I have no support.} But we don’t start with support, start with whatever you have from wherever you are and then people who will support you. Will find you on the journey and they will push you to your destiny.
So I urge the youth who are doing martial arts, whether you are doing boxing, kickboxing, Taekwondo, to keep training everyday.
At least the minimum you can train is five days a week, show up in the gym, whether you feel like training or not. Show up and train, then try as much as you can to learn different disciplines of martial arts because this will help you to fight in an MMA fight.”
