Where Is Manel Kape From? UFC Flyweight’s Ethnicity, Religion & Nationality

UFC flyweight star Manel Kape had a nightmare beginning to his stint in the UFC. Losing his first two fights in the Las Vegas-based promotion, it seemed he wasn’t cut out for MMA’s biggest stage. His first loss came at the hands of flyweight champion Alexandre Pantoja and the second one came at the hands of his upcoming opponent, Matheus Nicolau. After that, however, Kape rallied back strongly, showing his class and proving he belonged in the UFC by going on a four-fight winning streak.

While his fighting career is well documented, his personal life and his background details aren’t. So ahead of his fight against Bruno Silva at UFC on ESPN: Covington vs. Buckley, let’s take a deep dive into the upcoming star’s ethnicity, religion, nationality, and more.

Where is Manel Kape from? His ethnicity and nationality

The 31-year-old flyweight fighter has his roots in Africa and was born in the Angolan capital city of Luanda. Besides his regional origins, Manel Kape is also of Portuguese descent, making the 9th-ranked UFC fighter a dual national. Born to Anglo-Portuguese parents, Kape has always been a Christian. However, he made massive headlines when he converted to Islam in January 2024. The real reason for his sudden change of mind is yet to be known by the MMA world.

When it comes to Manel Kape’s life growing up, there is also not much information available. However, there is some information about when and how he started fighting. So if you are one of those who are highly interested in finding out, let’s dig in!

How did Manel Kape start fighting?

The only known detail about the Portuguese-Angolan fighter is that he started his professional MMA career back in 2012. But what was he doing before that? Well, the answer to the question was provided by none other than Manel Kape himself. During a Q&A session for the UFC, the 31-year-old fighter revealed that his father is a former world champion in boxing, as a result, he too started training in the sport back in Portugal when he was just four years old. Soon falling in love with combat sports, he then started training in MMA at 13 years old. Since then, ‘Starboy’ hasn’t turned back and is now a part of the world’s biggest MMA promotion. But do you know that he is also a family man?

Is ‘Starboy’ married? Does he have a daughter?

When we turned our focus to Manel Kape’s relationship status, for a long time we thought that the Portuguese-Angolan fighter was single. He never mentioned anything about his girlfriend or wife anywhere. However, it was recently revealed that Kape has a wife named Julia Kukharchuk. It isn’t known when they got married, but they have a child together.

Manel Kape has a daughter named Amy Kape. It was revealed after he shared images of his daughter on social media, which was unexpected given that the 30-year-old mostly keeps his personal life private. Kape’s wife and daughter also attended one of his recent fights at the UFC Apex.

While his personal life looks sorted and happy, his fighting career is blooming as well. After all, more than three-fourths of his victories have come via stoppages, with over 50% being knockouts, which has made him must-watch TV as far as the flyweight division is concerned.