The ‘King of Pain’ punched his way through pain and poverty, abuse and racism to be the accomplished MMA fighter he is today.
Hyder Amil looked like he was ready to tap out.
His opponent, Chase Gibson, was choking him out for much of their first round battle in Legacy Fighting Alliance 137 at the Commerce Casino in Commerce, CA last July 29, 2022.
With 90 seconds left in the round, Gibson lifted Amil and was going to powerbomb him onto the canvas. Amil made a hard turn to protect himself but in doing so, broke a rib.
Despite looking like a goner, Amil was able to eventually slip out and stand again, this time taking down his opponent to the canvas and raining down strikes. Only the bell to signify the end of the round saved Gibson.
“I’m in pain (from the hard turn),” Amil said to his cornerman during the one-minute break between rounds.
“Do you want to quit?” asked his cornerman.
“No,” emphatically answered Amil.
“Now, your advantage is your speed. Use it. Knock him out now,” advised his cornerman.
Eleven seconds into the second round, Amil rained down eight strikes including one kick to the face to knock out Gibson. Referee Frank Trigg waded in to call off Amil and the fight was over.
As the color commentator enthused during the live broadcast, “Wow, the roof was just blown off the Commerce Center! NorCal rains supreme tonight.”
The commentator was referring to an “unofficial Battle for California with Gibson representing Los Angeles and Amil from San Francisco.
“I guess I am the ‘King of California’ now,” smiled Amil as he chalked up his seventh win in seven featherweight mixed martial arts bouts.
More than two years later, with his record now at 10-0, Amil reflected on that fight that was a metaphor for his life so far.
“I took a lot of pain from Chase,” he noted. “If I was going to lose that fight as he was slipping the chokehold on me, I would go down fighting and fall asleep rather than me tapping.”
“But…” he added with his voice trailing off. “I found a way to get back up and win. It is the story of my life.”
Despite being 34 years of age, from almost the time he could think for himself and even walk, he was physically and verbally abused by his father, school bullies, jocks, and his peers.
“Pain is a constant friend. Except now, I am dishing it out.”
Today, fight fans are well aware of this Filipino who is making waves in the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the world’s top combat sports organization.
And the Filipino has been well represented in the UFC.
There were fighters Mark Muñoz (16-6-0) and Brandon Vera (16-10-0, 1NC) who are the only ones with winning records in the UFC with the former finishing with a 9-6 record and the latter going 8-7.
There are many others with the current crop including Punahele Soriano (10-4, 4-4 in the UFC), Joshua Culibao (11-4, 3-4-0, 1 NC in the UFC), and Ricky Turcios (12-4, 2-2 in the UFC).
And there’s Hyder Amil who is undefeated at 10-0 with two knockouts for two wins in the UFC.
Aside from being undefeated, in his last UFC outing, he landed 38 consecutive against his foe, Korean Jeong Yeong Lee stunning the MMA world including legends and stars of the game.
“Proper scrap just opened the main card of the UFC. Wow. Congrats to Hyder Amil,” declared British hero Michael Bisping.
“Free Hyder Amil from the Apex,” demanded color commentator Charlie Quinn. “What a savage.”
“A 38-piece combo? That’s insane,” underscored former UFC fighter Vince Morales.
Of all the Filipinos including those born overseas, Amil is the great homegrown hope. Of the Filipinos who gave a very good account of themselves in the UFC, it is only Amil who was born in the Philippines.
Amil is of mixed race with his father equal parts Indian, Syrian, European, and Filipino. But he lived in Cebu for the first six-plus years of his life before fleeing with his mother and two sisters to the United States to escape their father’s wrath.
When you learn about Amil’s past, then juxtapose that with his undefeated record in mixed martial arts, the first thing that will pop into your mind is, “How is it that you aren’t fucked up?”
“That’s a wonder, huh?” the 31-year old MMA fighter from Basak, Cebu marveled as well.
Hyder did not have a normal childhood.
The area where he grew up isn’t the paved or commercialized area it is today. It was all dirt roads and well, an economically-challenged place to live.
Were those his only concerns?
At age four, he was physically abused by his father who had a gambling addiction. His mother was forbidden to show him any affection. By day, he was expected to act as a Muslim, but at night, when all was quiet, that was his free time with his Catholic mother who enjoined her only son to pray the rosary.
Lacking in love and affection, Hyder poured his feelings into his pet rabbit. However, one day, his father, in debt once more, sold the rabbit to some neighbors to be eaten.
“I felt a rage inside of me,” Amil recalled. “An anger that wasn’t there before. But what could I do? I was young, small and six years old at the time?”
Finally, his mother had enough and clandestinely planned to escape to live in the United States, along with his sisters.
As they made their way inside the airport at Mactan, they were stunned to find Amil’s father chasing after them, pleading for them to stay.
But enough was enough. Hyder gave his father one last hug and bade him goodbye.
“Even if he was abusive, he wasn’t really a bad person. Some things didn’t go his way that led him to where he was. As relieved as I was, my family were to leave all the abuse behind, it was the hardest thing for me to do—to say goodbye to my father.”
“If you ask any one, they will tell you no one works harder than Hyder Amil. All the pain of growing up just fueled me.”
Relief, however, wasn’t overnight.
“We were 15 people living in a three-bedroom house,” he shared of the memory.
“My mom and my sisters stayed in one room, my cousins in another, while my aunts and grandparents lived in a room that they constructed outside the house just to accommodate everyone.”
“You know how Filipinos are—we’re resilient and hardworking. And as everyone found work and began to get better financially, people started moving out, decongesting the place. And because of a shared experience in good and bad times, we remain close to this day.”
However, owing to their brown skin, everyone was on the receiving end of racism and bullying. “Asians got a lot of stick, and although I am fair-skinned because of my mixed-race and didn’t get it as bad as the others, I still experienced it.”
“One time, the toughest guy in school was bullying me and by now, I had enough. I grabbed him by the shirt and pulled him close to me and yelled, ‘Come on, let’s go.’ We ended up being best friends. I think that he appreciated the fact that not only was I going to fight, but after all the pain, suffering, and abuse I had taken in my young life, I had no fear in me.”
Although some of his American friends enjoined Amil to take up martial arts, he wasn’t serious or even keen about it until one episode got nearly out of hand.
“My mom was going to break up with her boyfriend in the US and she asked me to accompany her to defend her just in case things got out of hand. I was 10 years old and my heart was pounding because I didn’t know what to do. All I know is I have to defend the people I love. They start having an argument and as my mom is breaking up with him, he lunges towards her. I quickly stepped in between and pushed him back. No way I was going to win against a grown man but it shocked my mom and the guy that they stopped in their tracks. From there on, I decided to take martial arts more seriously.”
Playing running back for the high school football team also gave Amil more confidence.
During one scrimmage, he was able to slalom through the entire defense when one of the linebackers rushed to blindside him. Amil saw him in the corner of his eye and as the defender made the tackle, Amil flipped him on the ground with him on top and made a motion to punch.
Instead of punching the guy, Amil tapped his helmet and that was the last time anyone in school tried something stupid with him.
The defender said, “You need to go with me to the wrestling team.”
Amil gravitated easily through the new sport. Three weeks later, he had a medal around his neck. Despite being involved in football, wrestling, and martial arts, Amil was rudderless. ‘I felt that I was unfocused. I was always angry. There was this rage about me.”
However, Amil didn’t realize his potential right away. He surmises not having a father in his life made him somewhat of a wild child. He always got into trouble and engaged in things he should have been doing. As a result, he was kicked out of school, and later fired from work.
That is when he found himself in El Niño Training Center along Linden Avenue in south San Francisco, one of the top training and fitness facilities in the United States for mixed martial arts. That finally put him on the path to get his life in order and to embark on a mixed martial arts career.
“I really wasn’t planning a career in MMA, but getting hired by El Niño put some direction in my life.”
It wasn’t only for Amil, even his tough guy friend straightened out his life and now works for NASA. “Funny how it worked out for a couple of troublemakers,” quipped Amil who got his college diploma from Cal State East Bay (with a degree in construction management) and opened his own gym using his savings.
I am the only one from my friends and colleagues who has gotten this far so far so I am trying to help the guys who didn’t make it.”
During the global lockdown due to the Covid-19 virus, Amil thought that his MMA career was over. When Covid hit, he was fighting in the Bellator promotion.
“I thought everything was ruined. I separated my shoulder then no fights were happening. But by 2021, my shoulder healed, and then there were fights again. I thought I’d take this one last fight and see what happens.”
Amil knocked out Robson Junior during his first LFA match, took a split decision against Devante Sewell, and punched out Gibson. Then he received a call-up to the UFC.
He took a unanimous decision win over Emrah Sonmez in Dana White’s Contender Series that gave him a taste of what it was like to be in the UFC. Then he soundly defeated Fernie Garcia and then took home the $50,000 bonus for his “Performance of the Night’ award against Jeong Yeong Lee.
Today, Hyder Amil is also focused on helping others through his gym. “I am the only one from my friends and colleagues who has gotten this far so far so I am trying to help the guys who didn’t make it.”
And UFC-wise, Amil is hoping not just for another match before 2024 ends.
“Hopefully now, I can get into the big numbered UFC events and fight in these big arenas. I am ready for that. And hopefully, for the third time in my life, my mom will tell me that she is proud of me when I win a UFC title belt.”
Those first two times was when he got his college diploma and the second was when he made it to the UFC (Dana White’s Contender Series).
Reflecting on how things have worked out not just for him but also for his mother, sisters, and relatives, Amil shared they have all made it out of that three-bedroom house that started their American journey.
His mother still lives in Vallejo, California, while a sister works in Washington. The other sister secured herself a commercial pilot’s license.
“We’re just go-getters who worked hard to climb out of all the pain and poverty, while battling abuse and racism. I graduated from college and opened an MMA gym all in the same year. I am a nonchalant and fun loving guy but I am able to do these things.”
“If you ask any one, they will tell you no one works harder than Hyder Amil. All the pain of growing up just fueled me.”
