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Bashir Ahmad started MMA in his native country of Pakistan.
Pakistan is the sixth most populous country in the world with more than 180 million inhabitants. Yet it took just one man sleeping on the mat in a small gym that doubled as his apartment to start the boom of an entire sport.
Almost singlehandedly, Bashir Ahmad founded mixed martial arts in Pakistan four years ago -- like Dr. James Naismith and Abner Doubleday all rolled into one.
“I can’t help but look back when I came here, I can’t help but think about that apartment,” Ahmad told The Post. “There was no MMA outside that apartment.”
It all started in that small space. Ahmad lived nearly a life of poverty to make it all work. At dusk, he would sit on the roof of the building with his partner, his grandmother’s former driver, and fantasize about what the future could bring.
Now, as Ahmad trains for his second professional fight against Shannon Wiratchai at ONE FC: Kings & Champions on April 5 in Singapore, the MMA scene in Pakistan has become self sufficient. Ahmad’s Synergy gym in Lahore has five affiliates, there are two amateur MMA promotions currently running in the country and Pakistan has its own sanctioning body, Pak MMA.
It might have been a quick rise, but it was never an easy one.
Ahmad brought in trainers from different disciplines to the tiny apartment. Most of them only came because Ahmad was looked at as curiosity – a graduate of an American university (George Mason) living at a gym in Pakistan.
“Nobody wanted to work together,” Ahmad said. “Everyone thought I was this very strange guy who had the opportunity to live in the United States and he came back here. The response I got from people was, ‘What the hell are you doing back here?’”
And that wasn’t a bad question.
Ahmad, who immigrated to Virginia with his parents when he was 2 years old, fell in love with mixed martial arts while taking a jiu-jitsu class at a local YMCA. He credits instructor Bruce Jones for being an inspiration to him. Ahmad bandied about the idea of starting an MMA gym in Pakistan, but not until after he retired.
The idea grew in his head as he continued training. He started a Pakistani MMA MySpace page not long after and when he went to the country for his sister’s wedding in 2007 he visited a tae kwan do school and told those there about MMA.
“Slowly from that point on, it was kind of like a calling,” Ahmad said. “It just started moving me.”
After graduating George Mason in 2008, he traveled to India and to Thailand to train in Muay Thai. When he returned, there was nothing tying him to the United States. The idea of starting an MMA gym in Pakistan was very real and Jones encouraged him. His parents gave him a loan to make it a reality.
“It just felt right,” Ahmad said. “It felt like destiny pretty much.”
MMA is booming now in Pakistan. The UFC is on three times a week on the country’s biggest sports channel, Geo Sports. No one from the UFC has contacted him yet about bringing an event to Pakistan, but that call would not surprise him.
The UFC has its sights set on Asia. Just this weekend, the largest MMA organization in the world hosted a card in Japan for the second straight year.
In 2012, the UFC went to Macau, China and television deals have been brokered in countries throughout the region. Soon, UFC president Dana White says, the UFC will host a show in India.
If and when the promotion begins to build a foothold in Pakistan, it will have Ahmad to thank. He says an India vs. Pakistan MMA event – perhaps an “Ultimate Fighter” reality show – would do massive business in the region.
“They’re coming to India and I think anybody who knows what goes on in the world, India and Pakistan have a huge rivalry,” he said. “That’s gonna happen.”
Right now, though, Ahmad is taking a step back as an organizer and focusing on his career as a fighter with ONE FC.
“I’m kind of the face of MMA in Pakistan, now it’s time to do what I wanted to do in the beginning – represent the country,” Ahmad said. “If I can get eyes on me, get some spectacular wins out there, it’s gonna be good for everybody.”
He credits the work of those around him for taking MMA in Pakistan to the next level. It blossomed from a tiny space in Lahore in 2009.
“Looking back it’s funny how things have even surpassed what we were talking about,” Ahmad said. “There was nothing here in terms of MMA.”
mraimondi@nypost.com
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