Srinagar: Rising mixed martial arts exponent Owais Yaqoob, who defeated Bulgarian Delyan Georgiev last week, returned to his native village in Pulwama district of Jammu and Kashmir to a rousing welcome on Tuesday.
Yaqoob said he will celebrate his victory without losing focus as he is up for another test in Istanbul later this month.
“I have returned home to my people, and I am feeling a very good energy. My focus never wavered. I always celebrate my victories, but we always celebrate in a way that ensures our focus never shifts. Our focus remains on the fact that we are still hungry and we need to do more,” Yaqoob said at his residence in Murran village.
He thanked the countrymen for supporting him all through.
“First of all, thank you to all of India. The whole of India celebrated with us today, and everyone supported us and showed up. More than 1.6 million people watched the fight live from India for the first time, and the fight was going on at night, yet everyone was watching. This is a huge achievement for me,” he said.
The 28-year-old, who has trained with Russian MMA fighters, said while winning the fight is great the bigger achievement is that the people are supporting and loving him.
“Their emotions are connected to me, and that is a huge achievement. People give me the motivation to train. I called my family and told them I would celebrate today, sit with them, and start training again tomorrow because our next fight is coming up in Istanbul at the end of August. It will be a grappling match featuring major UFC fighters, and I will be there too,” he said.
Yaqoob revealed that he became unwell a few days before the fight in Bulgaria but did not reveal it to anyone as he would have been accused of making excuses ahead of the big match.
“When I left from here, first, I had an injury in the foot, and then my shoulder got injured. After that, we went and travelled for 40 hours, and as soon as I reached the fight week, I got a fever and a cold. I wasn’t sharing this with anyone because if I did, people would say I was making excuses,” he said.
Asked about wearing a traditional Karakul cap while celebrating his win, Yaqoob said it represented the rich culture of Kashmir.
“The people we had from the old times, whose culture was good… better than ours, who were more modest, who had good discipline, who had good food…I wanted to represent all those things,” he said.
