The first one hundred grand I won was bitter-sweet: we blew through it like nothing.
Frans Mlambo knows that even triumphs come at a cost. If he wins the inaugural Professional Fighters League (PFL) Europe Championship in his hometown of Dublin in December he’ll collect $100,000 again – and aims to make the money last longer than before.
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That previous prize was for winning the Copa Combate tournament in Miami, Florida, in December 2021, but that ‘early Christmas present’ quickly disappeared:
“It was not only the [American] taxes but things I had to pay off. I was re-locating as well. It didn’t last as long as we planned it for!
“This time, the way PFL is doing it, I’m getting paid each fight to the final, so that’s absolutely perfect. This hundred grand will have a way different impact than it did the last time.”
Yet his sights are set even higher than winning in Paris this Saturday night in the PFL Europe play-offs at then in the bantamweight final the 3Arena:
“This isn’t the goal, really. The goal is the million dollars next year. I’m looking at this as the warm-up for next year’s tournament.
“At the same time I’m fighting against really high level guys and I have to take them out.”
He's had a late change of opponent, with Italian Francesco Nuzzi replaced by France's Mokhtar Benkaci, who will be out to make an impression in front of his home crowd.
Still, Frans says: "I’m taller, longer. I just feel like I have this. I’m not taking it for granted by any means but I’m going into this very confident.”
Now 32, Frans was born in South Africa but has spent most of his life in Dublin: “I’m in Ireland 20 years. Mum moved over with my little brother and I followed them over.
“I was 21, 22, having my first amateur fight – but it feels like I’m in MMA 20 years!”
If ever there’s a movie made of his life story, he’ll be happy to play himself, recalling his childhood desire to be a screen star:
“I was into singing, and I was going to be an actor – an action star. Then I ended up getting into the boxing, then I was a fighter.
“I was never much into sports – I was into fighting! I started doing karate when I was 10 because I was always watching martial arts movies, mad into Jackie Chan, Jet Li, Chuck Norris, of course. I could name loads of them, all the action stars back in the 90s, and martial arts in general.
“That’s what mini Frans Mlambo had planned, then life took a hammer to that plan.
“I ended up doing boxing when I moved to Ireland, for about five years, then transitioned to MMA.”
He was a talented boxer, making it onto the Irish amateur team, but injury intervened:
“I was looking to compete in the Olympic qualifiers but I got injured before I could start, and I kinda gave up on the sport.
“Not only having to wait another four years [for the next Olympics], I was just getting sick of boxing at that stage anyway. There’s so much politics in boxing in general, and that kinda ate at me. That made me lose my love for boxing.
“But at the same time MMA was what I actually always wanted to do. I started out doing karate and was then naturally good at boxing, so I stuck with it.”
His love for MMA, he succinctly explains, is because “it’s more like martial arts.”
Frans came to wider attention having helped Conor McGregor prepare for his mega-millions boxing match against Floyd Mayweather Jr in August 2017.
Mlambo is also part of trainer John Kavanagh’s Staight Blast Gym set-up and he recalls: “SBG, they knew I was a boxer, after a few weeks’ training I was thrown in with all their professional MMA fighters. He was one of them.”
Frans Mlambo won’t match McGregor’s multi-millions – indeed that million-dollar prize next year would do him fine: “I’m just gonna keep going until I make what I need to make – and then I’ll bounce!”
