Friday Fighter of the Week : Rahul K Raju

The “Kerala Krusher” Rahul K Raju is arguably one of the best Indian MMA fighters of all time.He hails from the southern Indian state of Kerala trains at the prestigious “Juggernaut” Fight Club in Singapore where he is an MMA coach. Inspired by Bruce Lee, Rahul K Raju started training KUNG FU in Kerala at an age of 14. He took up MMA when he moved to Singapore for higher education and started training in the Amateur Circuit from 2014.

Juggernaut Fight club has a proven record in producing the best local fighters in Singapore and all over the world One of the top prospects in ONE Championship, the Indian fighter is a fan favorite in the promotion. He holds a professional MMA record of 7-4-0 with his latest win coming against Furqan Cheema of Pakistan.

One of the best jiu-jitsu talent in the country, he fought the BJJ Phenom Garry Tonon in a closely contested lightweight bout. The top Indian prospect showed phenomenal resilience against the jiu-jitsu wizard and won the hearts of millions of spectators watching the event worldwide. He scrambled out of multiple submission attempts by the BJJ wizard including two heel hooks and a triangle. The submission specialist Tonon tried throwing a variety of strikes and a few high kicks before resorting to the ground game, where his strength lay.

Pic credits: ONE Championship

In an interview Rahul Raju talked about his fight with Tonon he said “I trained purely for leglocks almost two months ahead of the fight. During the camp, I was focussing on each detail and that helped me get a better idea of how to escape from every possible position. Well, that fight gave me confidence in my overall game.”

How did Rahul K Raju get better at BJJ

Rahul K Raju credits his jiu-jitsu game to years of training at Singapore. Starting off he was never a pure BJJ Guy. He trained in BJJ just to use it in MMA. So his game was mostly to stay on top and get the submission from there. After four years of training, when he started coaching jiu-jitsu in Juggernaut Fight Club he focussed more on techniques and detailing that took his ground game to another level.

Rahul K Raju is also hopeful of India’s BJJ scene getting better. India has some high-level grapplers now, even though the numbers are very less. Slowly but surely we will come to the top of the global MMA scene.

The Kerala Krusher dream is to put Indian MMA on the global map and we are very hopeful we will get there very soon. The MMA India Show hopes to see him fighting very soon and wishes him all the best for his future fights.