It takes months, even years of sacrifice and preparation to build a fighter up to the point where they are ready to step into the spotlight and put their body on the line for a pay cheque.
Some fighters believe their entire life feels like a build-up to that pivotal moment under the bright lights.
For Shadrack Nsua that moment came earlier this month, where he was able to dispatch a much more experienced opponent in less than one minute after the opening bell.
Securing the win set him up as a force to be reckoned with in the Extreme Fighting Championship’s (EFC) middleweight division.
But the imposing 29-year-old Congolese fighter is no stranger to adversity, and the chaotic minute inside the cage pales in comparison to some of the hardships he has endured on his long journey to realise his ultimate dream.
“I’ve been fighting my whole life,” he said.
“I’ve had to work and fight for everything that I have.
“Stepping into that cage, standing face to face with an opponent like that does not scare me. I’ve been through worse.” .
He was born in Kinshasa, where he lived with his mother, Ester, and three siblings.
His father, John, served in the military and often spent long periods away from home.
Life was simple until a few months after his sixth birthday, when his mother put him and his two-year-old sister on a bus with strangers and told them to go to SA.
“At the time I had no idea what was going on. I did not understand and I was scared.
“It wasn’t until many years later that I found out what happened and why we had to disappear in such a hurry.”
A regime change in the Congo forced his father to abscond from the military to avoid being conscripted to fight for a government he did not support.
John had to disappear and could not tell his family where he was going for their own safety.
He told his wife to send the children away as well as they would be better off in another country.
Nsua and his two-year-old sister Benedict spent the next few months travelling south with a group of Congolese refugees.
Along the way they met a stranger who phoned their mother and told her he would make sure they got to SA.
They travelled with him, staying in no place for more than a few weeks.
At the time, he spoke nothing but French and Swahili and could hardly communicate with anyone in the strange places along their travels.
One night, they crossed the Zimbabwean border and arrived in Musina.
The stranger phoned Nsua’s mother and told the two young children to stay where they were.
“Then he just disappeared.
“To this day I don’t even know his name. The bus left and it was dark.
“But there my sister and I were, on a bench in a park in Musina, alone in the dark at night.
“We sat there for what felt like hours until another man walked up to us.
“He asked my name and said he was a friend of my father.
“He had spoken to my mother and we had to go with him. We had no other choice.”
For a year, they lived with his father’s friend in Johannesburg before the man said he could no longer look after them.
That was when Nsua’s uncle, Israel, fetched them to come and live in Central, Gqeberha.
However, despite the tough road they had already travelled, the stay with his uncle turned into their biggest nightmare as they suffered continuous abuse at the hands of his uncle’s girlfriend.
On the wrist of his right hand he still carries a scar as a reminder of the day he reached breaking point.
“I was 10 years old when my uncle left some money for us to buy food.
“As I was about to go to the shop, his girlfriend wanted the money, and I refused to give it to her.
“We got into a scuffle and she bit me on my hand until I let go of the money.
“That day I ran away from home. I decided it would be better to live on the streets than to endure more of this abuse,” Nsua said.
For weeks he slept on the streets, but never more than two blocks away because he still wanted to keep a close eye on his sister, who was six years old at the time.
At that stage he was able to get by with the little English he had managed to teach himself in his time in Gqeberha.
One day, one of his uncle’s neighbours recognised him on the side of the road and took him home.
She gave him fresh clothes and a meal, and when he told her what was going on she made a very important phone call to Nsua’s mother who, at the time, was still in the DRC, but no longer at their home in Kinshasa.
A few weeks later, out of the blue, John Nsua arrived at his brother’s house looking for his children.
A concerned phone call from his wife led to him to Gqeberha, where he was reunited with his son and daughter.
For the first time in his life, Nsua had some stability, and at the age of 13 he went to school for the first time, attending the Blessings Academy.
However, he admitted to struggling academically, but applied himself to sport, playing soccer and cricket.
He later attended Paterson High School in Schauderville where his size and natural athletic talent made him a standout on the rugby field.
He played lock, flanker and eighthman, and even made it to provincial trials playing under-17 and under-19.
“I loved the physicality of rugby. And I never had an older brother growing up, so I immediately fell in love with the camaraderie of playing a team sport like this.”
After finishing school he joined the NMU development team in the hopes of making a career as a professional rugby player.
However, his lack of proper identification documents made it difficult as he could not apply for any bursaries to play top tier rugby.
For years, he played club rugby and worked as a bouncer and a barman to make a living.
In 2016, he started studying part-time to become as a private security and personal protection operative.
Meanwhile, he managed to work himself up to the position of bar manager at a local bar and brewery.
Around the same time his rugby dreams were dealt a blow when chronic knee pain turned out to be osteochondroma — a bony protrusion that commonly grows at the base of a bone.
However, Nsua’s was leaking fluids from his bone marrow, and he was at risk of developing cancer and needed to undergo surgery.
The recovery was long and painful, and fearing that he had missed his window to compete in rugby he followed a family member’s advice to look into martial arts as a hobby.
But the hobby soon turned into an obsession, and last year Nsua left his job to pursue mixed martial arts full-time at the PE Submission Fighting Academy, under the tutelage of Chris Bright.
Here he also found a team that became like family.
“Shadrack is an athletic specimen and he is very dedicated to his craft,” Bright said.
“In a very short space of time he managed to learn what he needed to make himself a super tough competitor.”
He believes much of the hardships that Nsua went through in his younger life has made him resilient and accustomed to the hard work and sacrifice that comes with a professional fighting career.
“We knew it was only a matter of time before professional promotions would come calling and we had to be ready for any opponent they threw at us.”
A short stint as an explosive amateur soon drew attention to Nsua and his debut at the EFC was set for November 3 against Capetonian Francois Cundari on short notice.
The fight started with a failed take down from Nsua, resulting a wild scramble that landed him on the ground with Cundari trying to secure a choke hold.
But Nsua wrestled out of his opponent’s grip, got back to his feet and used his superior reach to land devastating punches that left Cundari unconscious in the middle of the ring before the first minute of the fight had passed.
The fight secured him a performance bonus and immediately put his name among top contenders in the EFC’s middleweight division.
“This win proved to me that I am on the right track.
“I am where I am supposed to be and I am finally pursuing the career I was meant to.
“I cannot wait to return to the cage and secure my next victory.
“I believe I have what it takes to become a champion,” Nsua said.
Meanwhile, his younger sister Benedict excelled at school and she was able to secure bursaries that put her on track to pursue a career in professional fencing — an achievement her older brother is immensely proud of.
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