Road to UFC: how Indonesia’s Jeka Saragih fights to lift his village out of poverty
- The 28-year-old lightweight is fighting for the future of his people, as he looks to become the first Indonesian to sign for the UFC
- ‘I think about all these things. So I never think of just winning the fight – I think about killing my opponent,’ Saragih says
Jeka Saragih carries the hopes of a nation this weekend as he sets out to become the first-ever Indonesian contracted to the UFC but it’s the 120 families that make up his mountain village home that he fights for every day.
“I do this because I feel I have to,” Saragih explains. “I fight because I want to help lift my people out of poverty and to inspire the young kids so that they are led away from the bad things in life.”
We’re speaking via video call and the 28-year-old Saragih (13-2) is in San Diego preparing for the finals of the Road to UFC Asia-wide talent search, which is being staged as part of the Fight Night 218 card in Las Vegas this weekend. It’s where Saragih will face India’s Anshul Jubli (6-0) with a UFC contract on the line for the winner but it becomes clear there are bigger forces at play here.
Saragih is quick to turn focus on to matters of life, and he often leans forward when he talks into the camera, as though to make sure he’s getting the point across, that, yes, there is a fight to talk about, but, also, he wants the world to listen to his story, too. He says his village is impoverished and that it has been forgotten.
“The thing that I love the most about becoming an MMA fighter is I can make my village known by people that live outside of my village and hopefully I can make my village known internationally,” says Saragih.
“For me, there is nothing special competing in Las Vegas because the most important thing is if I can bring a good impact on the people who live around me.
“I want the world to know what is going on, and hopefully the government or maybe even the president of Indonesia can know my village is still bad. There is no road, there is no telephone – and I want this to change.”
Yi Zha flies flag for China as Road to UFC reaches finals
The Road to UFC tournament was designed to find potential from the outer reaches of the MMA world and in the lightweight final it has duly delivered.
Neither Indonesia nor India have home-based fighters on the UFC books and Saragih brings with him an origin story that reflects just how far the fight game can carry someone, given the right opportunities and given sheer talent.
Saragih was born in the village of Bah Pasunsang, in the mountainous Raya region of Indonesia’s North Sumatra, to parents who still to this day farm the local fields. The mountains of North Sumatra sit around 1,300 kilometres from the Indonesian capital Jakarta and a whole world away in terms of economic development.
When Saragih is not training for MMA he returns there to help work the fields for his family, or any neighbours who need it.
Saragih came into fighting – or rather, fighting came to him – when he was sent away to a large town for junior high school and found that the kids there tended to bully any young village people they could find.
“That’s why the reason I learned to fight – so I could protect myself and I could protect other students too,” he says.
First it was Chinese martial arts and wushu, and junior titles, and later came MMA and a career on the domestic Indonesian fight circuit – and the belief that success could help him make a difference.
Saragih has carried that intensity of purpose over into his actions in the cage so far in this tournament. He has seemed from the first bell to be a man on a mission.
First-up came a spinning back fist that destroyed India’s Pawan Maan Singh (7-3-1) late in the third round of their first-round fight in Singapore last June. Then a massive right hand laid South Korea’s Ki Won-bin (17-8) out cold in the first round of their semi-final in Abu Dhabi last October.
Asked whether these were deliberate – and quite spectacular – statements being made, Saragih says simply: “Of course.”
“I think about all these things when I go into a fight,” he says. “So when I go into the cage I never think of just winning the fight – I think about killing my opponent.”
Now the 28-year-old Jubli stands between Saragih and, well, hope.
“Every time I’m going back to my village I never think I’m an athlete, I’m just a normal person that wants to help my people,” says Saragih. “I want to motivate the kids in my village to avoid bad habits or a bad life.
