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EFC Champion, Faeez ‘Troublemaker’ Jacobs plans to display the pinnacle of mixed martial arts when he faces Australian, Trent Girdham in front of his home crowd.
Jacobs will defend his belt and his hometown on February 26 at the highly anticipated EFC KNOX Legacy series event held at GrandWest Grand Arena.
The Mitchells Plain born MMA phenom sat down with SABC Sport to discuss this auspicious event and the opportunity to fight in front of the people who have been supporting him all these years.
“I once dreamt of being a champion, and coming to my home city to represent myself as the champion. Until now, I haven’t received that opportunity. This will be the first time I get to show my people what I look like as a champion.
“There have been people who have been following me for a decade, and I’ve been climbing and clawing my way to become a champion, and now I finally get to fight on home soil against an opponent from another country.
“This is the ultimate playing field for me, and I can’t wait to show what a lifetime of martial arts training has produced,” said Jacobs.
Jacobs ongoing journey to the peak of the sport started with unsanctioned backyard brawls, and it was in those brawls that he decided to pursue pro-MMA.
“I realised from my first ever fight that there was something inside of me that felt like an overwhelming certainty that this is what I was destined to do. I was so taken by the moment and I wanted to experience the feeling of fighting over and over again.”
The Troublemaker’s opponent arrives on South African soil with a healthy record behind his name, and Jacobs says the quality of his opponent will only bring out the most dangerous version of himself.
“He has got a bigger record than me, but I appreciate that and I value what it takes to become great and deadly in this sport. He has put himself in great challenges in order to be a great challenge for me, and because of that I believe that he will bring the best out of me, and unfortunately for him, the best version of me is very scary.”
Faeez Jacobs also revealed his thought process when preparing for a fight of this magnitude.
“Whenever I match up with an opponent, I research their tendencies, I like to research their personality and understand their motivation for fighting. From what I know about him is that he loves the identity of a fighter and he is fighting from a place of wanting to prove himself and because of that he has certain tendencies in his game that’s puts him in vulnerable positions, so naturally I’ve set traps,” explained Jacobs.
February 26 will no doubt be a date to remember. The fight card includes some of South Africa’s finest fighters against the world’s best, and Faeez Jacobs has promised to deliver the purest performance of mixed martial arts in his own backyard.
