“In the evening, when I come home late from training, it hurts me to see that everyone is already sleeping. MMA takes up a lot of space in my life, and involves a lot of sacrifice.”

A computer engineer, family man and fighter, 30-year- old Paul-Emmanuel Gnaze wears many hats, and tries, as best as he can, to go from one to the other without a glitch.

In his deep, calm voice, he explains how he arrived to where he is by chance: “I don’t have the same background as other fighters. I started martial arts late in life. Before that, I used to play soccer, but by the end of my student years, I realized that at 120kg, I was not the most efficient person on the field!”

Ultimately, it was MMA that he found to fit him like a glove: “I chose this sport because it corresponds to my temperament. Without going into details, let’s say that I had a difficult and tumultuous childhood, which required a lot of fighting spirit. From my first training sessions, I understood that this sport required resilience, and I happen to have that in me.”

“I could be meaner, more violent”

In six years, Paul-Emmanuel Gnaze has evolved from discovery through to self-affirmation. At heavyweight, a rather open category, he allows his kickboxing to talk, which has already resulted in four first-round finishes. Aware of the work he still has to do, he is now working on filling in his gaps in wrestling and also wants to develop his ground game, to “get some submissions in”.But his other area for improvement is his mental approach to fighting. “In my everyday life, I’m known as a very nice person, and I have a hard time changing my mindset when I get in the cage. I could be meaner and more violent. My coaches often point that out to me. So I have to change that, to become a monster before my opponent – always with respect to the rules, of course!”