Alain Ngalani
Cameroonian-born and based in Hong Kong since 2001, Alain Ngalani (aka “The Panther”) is a four-time Muay Thai world champion and is known as one of the fastest heavyweight boxers in the world. Leanne Mirandilla talks to the competitive fighter—who is also the founder of Impakt gym—about how he got into fighting and his thoughts on action movie-making.
I have six brothers and one sister. Almost all of my brothers are into martial arts. We grew up in a martial arts environment because my mom decided so. She wanted [us] to learn to channel our energy.
I remember when I was five, I came back from school and I was crying because some kid took my lunch. I went to see my mom and I wanted her to go back to my school and scold them. She told me that I needed to learn how to be a man. I had to learn how to defend myself and I shouldn’t count on her.
I went back to school with the aim of taking care of myself. I think that was a really good lesson that my mom taught me. After that day, she signed me up for martial arts.
I went from martial art to martial art. Once I reached my black belt [in judo] I switched to karate because I wanted to improve and challenge myself. Once I had my black belt [in karate] I went to full contact, then French boxing, then kickboxing, then jujitsu and Muay Thai. I think what made me [who I am] today is the ability to learn all these martial arts and take whatever good I could take from each one of them and use them as one.
After watching the movie “The Bodyguard” with Whitney Houston, I wanted to be a bodyguard. I was 13 or 14. At that age I was already my country’s champion. I thought that if I were a bodyguard, it would be so cool. I grew up having that goal. I was expecting it to be just like the movie—you don’t have to kill anybody, you just have to protect who you work for and enjoy it. But actually being a bodyguard, especially in a place like Africa, is really serious and can be dangerous. I didn’t see that side until I was there. But it’s something I wanted to do, so I did it, and when I didn’t like it anymore, I left.
I love training. If I go a day without training, I feel like I’m getting sick. I believe that if you eat, sleep and go to the toilet every day, you should also train every day, whether it’s one hour or 10 minutes. You have to do some sort of training for a healthy body.