‘I was born to be here’: Ateba Gautier is the scariest young force at UFC 324

When Gautier landed his first big right hand against Robert Valentin last summer at UFC 318 in New Orleans, the Swiss fighter shook his head as if to say: “Okay, I see how it is.” Within seconds, Gautier dropped his prey to the canvas with that same right hand, a fact that seemed to surprise Valentin as he recovered and stood up. The expression on his face this time was one of bewilderment. Then a series of long, ferocious shots found their mark as Valentin sank behind a helpless shield of forearms, leaving referee Herb Dean to do the only merciful thing.

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He repelled the attack. Everything lasted 70 seconds. It takes waiters longer to serve the Sazerac on Bourbon Street than it took “The Silent Killer” to put away a capable boxer.

Where does all this come from?

For Gautier, punching is an act of love. Love for the fight. Warrior love standing in front of him, welcoming him into his pocket. Love for the sport, the moment and the ritual of separating a man from his senses. It is a love of brotherhood, because being locked in the cage is a shared experience that will last forever.

“For me it’s like, come on,” Gautier told Uncrowned ahead of his return Saturday at UFC 324. “Just showing love. It’s respect. You’re a warrior. And if you’re a warrior, it just means fighting for us, it’s not about anger. No, it’s not anger. It’s just pure love. But we express our love, but differently, differently. That’s how we express our love. Nothing more.”

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That fight, which had difficulty revealing its love story, is one of the reasons Gautier, 23, has become the scariest prospect in the middleweight ranks. He is 6ft 4in and tall, a true specimen to behold. “A unit,” as they called him in press row for his last fight in October with Tre’ston Vines.

And he is that. So far, in three UFC fights, he hasn’t had to endure a second round. He has just over six minutes of accumulated experience in the octagon and has already taken home two bonuses. He’s the kind of knockout artist who just needs a single wave of power to bring down the house.

However, it’s his poise in the octagon that makes the blood run a little cold.

He is not quick to finish anyone off. Enter with controlled deliberation.

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Against Vines at UFC 320, Gautier seemed to enjoy every second of the inevitable finishing sequence. The fight lasted less than two minutes in total, but conveyed the trademark ferocity that has become part of the Gautier experience. Every time he landed, it was like the building shook.

Heading into his UFC 324 fight against Andrey Pulyaev, that power has quickly become a major attraction, but it’s Gautier’s relaxed demeanor that defines the action. Perhaps “poise” was something he gained from the many street fights he had while growing up in Cameroon.

“Honestly, I had a lot of those, but I didn’t fight because, at this point, it wasn’t like I wanted to be a (professional) fighter,” he says. “I didn’t want to be a fighter. I used to fight alone because, first of all, I really liked fighting. For me, it was the only way to get respect. People have to respect me, so it was the only way. That’s why I used to fight all the time. I used to fight to show that I was strong too. Before, I wasn’t that big. I had a small, but strong body, but I had to show it to people. I was a little shorter, so I always had to show… I’m strong. I didn’t let anyone intimidate me.”

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Gautier analyzes this as a normal person would remember glorious summers spent at the lake. He enjoys the memories of fighting in the Doula neighborhoods, outside the watchful eye of the Cameroonian authorities. It’s their story, so what’s not to love? He told Uncrowned’s Ariel Helwani in an interview before that fight with Valetin that sometimes weapons were involved, specifically mentioning that he was stabbed with a screwdriver before bursting into laughter.

“I didn’t even feel it at the time,” he said.

In other words, the poise he has is disconcertingly profound.

“I didn’t even know what MMA was when I was a kid,” he says. “I started doing sambo when I was 18 and I started doing MMA when I was 19. So from sambo, that’s why I went from sambo to MMA, it was my coach who pushed me into MMA. I asked him, ‘Is it a fight?’ He says, ‘Yes.’ So I say, ‘Okay, let’s fight.'”

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Surprisingly, all of this was less than five years ago. Gautier left Cameroon on March 10, 2022, a date he has remembered by heart, and headed to Manchester, England, where he joined Carl Prince, the respected coach of Lerone Murphy and Dakota Ditcheva on the Manchester Top Team. The transition to living and training full-time in England has paid immediate dividends. Gautier is 9-1 as a professional, including all three knockouts in the UFC. He originally broke into the Contender Series, where he finished off Yura Naito at the end of the second round. Since his first appearance, people have talked about what an imposing figure he has.

And it has been a bit paradoxical. In England, where he is a dedicated professional fighter, he feels much more at ease than when he was not a fighter (but he fought all the time).

“I’m starting to see life differently,” he says. “When I say England is safe, that’s for me, that’s my opinion, because where I grew up it wasn’t that safe. So for me, it’s safe. If you’re not looking for trouble in England, you’re not going to get in trouble. But where I grew up, you don’t even want trouble, you’re just in trouble. You’re just already there. So just being there is like you’re in trouble.”

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Once again, talking about life in Cameroon is not something distressing for Gautier.

“There is no violence anymore,” he says. “But where I grew up, no, it was just violence.”

However, even then, the word that comes to Gautier’s mind is “love.” When he said his now famous quote during his appearance on Helwani’s show: “I hurt you because I love you.” – gave insight into his unique, perhaps counterintuitive way of thinking. The scary thing is that there seems to be plenty of love to go around.

Next in line is his Saturday matinee against Pulyaev, a Russian fighter who is coming off a strong performance against Nick Klein and yet finds himself in the range of a 10-to-1 underdog. The attention grows with every punch Gautier throws, and he knows that’s how you become a singular attraction.

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“Obviously I feel comfortable (with the limelight), because if it’s not me, who has it? If it’s not mewho has it? he says, repeating the words for emphasis. “So I have to be me. I have to be me. That’s what I’m looking for. That’s what I’m training for. I’m training hard to be in this position. That’s me. That’s my place. I was born to be here. Nobody else, just me. It’s not about someone else, no.

“Am I comfortable? Nobody cares if I’m comfortable or not. But if I don’t want to be there, if I don’t feel comfortable there, then stop fighting. Don’t give a good performance. Stop being there. But I want to be there. I want a good performance.”

Good performances perhaps understate the body of work we’ve seen so far from Gautier. Knockouts of his variety can be presented better under explosives. However, no matter how quickly the job gets done on Saturday in Las Vegas, remember this about Ateba Gautier, the 23-year-old talent-hunting phenom coming for all at 185 pounds: It’s all love.