Manel Kape slowly but surely appears to be establishing his foothold in the Ultimate Fighting Championship flyweight division.
Now four fights deep into his run with the Las Vegas-based organization, he will lock horns with Rogerio Bontorin in a featured UFC 275 attraction on Saturday at Singapore Indoor Stadium in Kallang, Singapore. Kape enters the cage on the strength of back-to-back victories, both of them finishes. He last appeared at UFC on ESPN 31, where he cut down Zhalgas Zhumagulov with punches 4:02 into the first round of their Dec. 4 pairing.
Ahead of Kape’s forthcoming battle with Bontorin, here are five things you might not know about him:
1. Martial arts have taken him far and wide.
Kape was born on Nov. 14, 1993 in Luanda, Angola—some 6,000 miles from Phuket, Thailand, where he trains out of an American Kickboxing Academy affiliate.
2. His youth was marked by on-the-job training.
“Starboy” was 19 years old when he made his professional mixed martial arts debut with a first-round technical knockout of Artur Gomes at Cage Fighters 2 in 2012. Kape went 2-0 as a teenager and went on to kick off his career with 11 victories in his first 12 appearances, as he emerged as one of the sport’s most promising lighter-weight competitors.
3. Potent offense has been an enduring trait.
Kape has secured 16 of his 17 wins by knockout, technical knockout or submission, nine of them inside one round. They include his aforementioned stoppage of Zhumagolov and an Aug. 7, 2021 finish that saw him bury Ode Osbourne with a flying knee and follow-up punches in 4:44 at UFC 265.
4. He belongs to an exclusive club.
The 28-year-old Angolan remains one of only three men who have held the Rizin Fighting Federation bantamweight championship, along with Kyoji Horiguchi and Kai Asakura. Kape captured the title with a second-round technical knockout of Asakura at Rizin 20 on Dec. 31, 2019, then relinquished it when he signed with the UFC three months later.
5. Long hauls do not suit him.
Kape owns an eyebrow-raising 1-4 record in bouts that reach the judges. In fact, he has not won a fight on the scorecards since he outpointed Marco Santos at Cage Fighters 3 in his fourth professional appearance back in 2013. Subsequent losses to Asakura, Yuta Sasaki, Alexandre Pantoja and Matheus Nicolau—two of them split verdicts—have left Kape scratching his head.