Mohammed Jaraya

Mohammed ‘The Destroyer’ Jaraya turned professional at just 17 years old and quickly became a fan favorite via the fighting style which earned him his nickname.   Jaraya has scored nearly half of his wins inside the distance and says he only considers a win to be a real victory if he stops his opponent.   That approach carried him to the top of the Dutch domestic league, one of the hardest regional circuits in the world, and now it’s carried him to the premier global organization.   On joining GLORY, Jaraya elected to move up to welterweight, having found the cut to lightweight increasingly difficult as he got older. He says the benefits in power and stamina were immediately apparent in the training room.   That training room is one of the sport’s most prominent: it’s in Team Colosseum in Utrecht, Netherlands and it counts former middleweight champion Jason Wilnis and lightweight contender Tyjani Beztati among its members.   Jaraya is from the city of Den Bosch, also home to featherweight champion Robin van Roosmalen, and was a keen soccer player in his youth. That all changed when he was 13 and his uncle brought him to the local kickboxing team.   “I went to the gym and fell in love instantly. It was love at first training! I immediately quit soccer and got myself some boxing gloves,” he recalls. “Now it is my life.”   Of Dutch-Moroccan background, Jaraya counts his countryman Badr Hari as his idol in the sport and says it is a dream come true for him to be part of the same organization as his kickboxing hero. His aim now is to make himself just as well known.