About

Where it started

I grew up in a family with a demanding, disciplined upbringing. As a teenager I went through a difficult period, making decisions I am not proud of today. At 15, a moment of crisis made my family understand how serious things had become.

In October 2010 my father wanted to fill my free time, so I decided to try Muay Thai. It was love at first sight, not only for the sport, but for the person teaching it: Dina Pedro, who is still my coach today.

Six or seven months later I had my first fight, and I lost it. Two months after that I faced the same opponent again, and won. I still find that feeling hard to explain. I had never felt it before, a feeling of achievement, of being capable.

I remember standing in the ring in that moment and thinking that this was what I wanted to do for the rest of my life.

Career journey

Eleven months after I started training, I competed in my first international championship, the WAKO European Championship, where I won the bronze medal.

Just before that championship, I made a bet with my coach: if I became world champion, I'd cut off my dreadlocks. I made the bet because I thought she was crazy, I'd only had two fights, let alone being world champion! In September 2012, I competed in my first World Championship and finished in 2nd place, in a final with a questionable result. Still, I cut off half my hair, because I hadn't finished first. In 2013, I cut off the rest completely.

From the preparation for that first championship onward, I was already training every day, and twice a day when I could.

In 2014, I dropped out of school and decided to focus 200% on the sport. I went to Thailand for the first time, spending a long stretch there training and fighting in local stadiums. That same year, I had my first professional fight and became Muay Thai World Champion for the first time.

In 2015, I fought in the renowned K-1 WGP in Japan, at -55kg. In 2017, I became IFMA Muay Thai European Champion in Elite -57kg, becoming the first Portuguese athlete to achieve this.

From 2014 onward, I kept doing long stretches in Thailand, training and fighting, until 2018, the year I received a message from my current manager, asking if I wanted to join a growing Asian organisation. They needed a video of me fighting to choose between 4 athletes. Little did I know my life and my dreams were about to change that week. I was selected, and signed with ONE Championship for the first time.

Before signing with ONE, my dream was to become champion of a major stadium in Thailand. But since the contract was exclusive, that dream became: become ONE champion. Something I'm getting closer to achieving every day.

In June 2018, I fought for the first time in ONE, in Macau, where I was winning the fight, but with 10 seconds left in the second round, I got caught with a spinning elbow that stopped me from continuing. The organisation loved my performance, and wanted to get me fighting again as soon as possible.

Since joining ONE, I've fought names like Zhang Peimian, Jon Di Bella, Superlek, and Panpayak.

I feel closer than ever to achieving my dream: becoming champion of my division in ONE Championship. Becoming ONE champion would be the realisation of that dream. Proof that a Portuguese guy from a small town near the capital can conquer the world.

Mindset

Discipline isn't something I learned to have, it's something that was always in me, from home. I grew up in a demanding family, and that stayed with me. Today, that same discipline is what makes me train every day, and twice a day when I can.

Losing never stopped me, it always made me train harder. That's how it was from the start: when I finished second at that first World Championship, my response wasn't to give up, it was to come back and train even harder the next day. That's the mindset I bring into every fight: I'm not afraid of losing, I'm afraid of not giving everything.

I believe there's always room to improve as a person, in spirit, and as an athlete. And I try to bring that into my everyday life.

One of my mottos for life is to never become a bitter old man. I don't want to reach 60 thinking "what if I had done this or that". I don't want to live with those "what ifs" in my head. I want to do what makes me happy and fight for my dreams, and even if I don't achieve them, at least I fought for them.

TV & sports commentary

Every Friday, I comment on ONE Championship fights on Sport TV, sharing what I know about the fighters, how things work inside the Muay Thai world at ONE, and what's really happening behind the scenes.