Jared Cannonier is making his return after almost a year on the shelf. He’ll headline this week’s Fight Night at Louisville, Kentucky, against Nassourdine Imavov in a 5-round battle. Cannonier’s already on a two-fight winning streak and would see to add another victory to inch closer to his title shot aspirations, which is his ultimate aim in his current run.

‘The Killa Gorilla’s MMA career is well-documented, to say the least. He’s fought in multiple divisions, from heavyweight to middleweight, and lost over 100 pounds in the span of 9 years, but little do we know about his personal details. As such, today, we will be looking into just that, starting with his ethnic and national background.

Where is Jared Cannonier from? His ethnicity and nationality

Jared Cannonier, 40, was born in the city of Dallas, Texas, which means that he is an American national. Dallas turned out to be the place where the middleweight star was raised. However, at present, the former title challenger lives in Arizona. Meanwhile, we are not sure of ‘The Killa Gorilla’s ethnicity, since details about it have not been made public. However, certain sources claim that Cannonier has his roots in Africa.

Jared Cannonier started his MMA journey pretty late, at 27 years old, when he was living with his pregnant wife. He weighed over 300 pounds back then, but accomplished a lot, including a purple belt in jiu-jitsu, just former 2-time middleweight champion, Israel Adesanya.

Coming over to Jared Cannonier’s belief in faith, it is an unusual one. He doesn’t seem to adhere to a certain religion, because he claims to be more spiritual than religious. Let’s take a look at the words he shared about his religious beliefs over seven years ago.

‘The Killa Gorilla’ reveals his religious beliefs

Jared Cannonier doesn’t call himself a Christian. Instead, his belief system lies in the Old Testament, in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, known as Jehovah. In this belief system, Jehovah always plans to have a savior who possesses the noble qualities of forgiveness and reconciliation. Cannonier claims that this has helped him a lot in keeping him as humble as he can be and grounded at the same time.

“I don’t put any title on my belief system. I believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob… the micro to lead is what I use as a tool to remind me that, you know, God is my father… that I follow his commandments… it helps me keep myself in check,” Jared Cannonier told Ariel Helwani ahead of his fight at UFC 208. It seems to have served him well as the Dallas native has almost triple the amount of wins compared to his losses.

Well, now putting his personal life aside, it would be interesting to see how he fares against Nassourdine Imavov after a year out of action. Will he win or will he lose? Share with us your predictions for the Saturday night main event.