Undefeated

Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) is a combat sport that mixes techniques from the full spectrum of martial arts disciplines. The modern sport rose to prominence in the Nineties but has several precursors: Ancient Greek Pankration, Brazilian Vale Tudo, Japanese Shooto, American catch-wrestling, and the traditional street brawl. MMA techniques can be divided into two categories: striking, where standing opponents exchange blows, and grappling, where fighters try to gain advantage over their opponents through submissions, holds and chokes. Successful MMA fighters have expertise in both grappling and striking.

Born in the Chimanimani district of Zimbabwe in 1997, Lewis was the youngest of eight children. He grew up in circumstances that were tough but not unusual in the rural countryside, helping his mother farm and do chores around the homestead. Three of the children, Lewis, his brother Ian and sister Hide, shared a father who was a truck driver for a company called Maids. Walking along the road to school, Lewis would always keep an eye out for his dad’s Maid truck, number 32, but he never saw it. “I didn’t meet my father, I would only hear stories.”

Lewis’ early life was unstable: the family kept moving, and Lewis went to five different schools before he was seven years old. Every move caused huge upheaval: the family would have to sell property, dispose of livestock, pack their belongings, move, and then build their new homestead.
Lewis’ mother was a war veteran and had been injured in the fighting. Perhaps stemming from her experiences, she was a fighter. Short-tempered and prone to bouts of violent aggression, she was highly protective of her family. Lewis remembers her with awe.

“Everyone in the region knew her. They realised that you shouldn’t mess with this woman or her kids. She was so aggressive and she would really fight you with her fists. She would grapple you, pull you down and start hitting you,” says Lewis. If you watch any of Lewis’ MMA (Mixed Martial Arts) fights, you are struck by how uncannily this memory of his mother resembles the adult Lewis in the ring. “Pull you down and start hitting you” is the unrefined version of the MMA technique known as “ground and pound”, and it is how Lewis has won many of his fights.

In 2005, Lewis’ father died and within a year his mother was also dead. Lewis was eight years old, and now an orphan. The children were parcelled out between different relatives; Lewis went first to an aunt, and then later to his eldest sister who was working in the Zimbabwean Air Force at Manyame Air Base in Harare.

There were tensions in this extended family, but the new-found stability benefited Lewis and he was enrolled in a better school at the base. The military approach was intense, but the structure taught Lewis punctuality and discipline. “Even now I am rarely late to the gym,” he says. “When someone is teaching me, I listen.” It was also at Manyame that Lewis discovered martial arts.

As a child, Lewis had been transfixed by kung fu movies and the big martial arts stars: Jackie Chan, Jean-Claude van Damme, Sylvester Stalone, Chuck Norris. Aged eight, Lewis made his own punching bags, putting sand into sacks and hanging them up around the homestead so he could experiment with “backflips, spinning kicks, all these cool tricks”. He was often in trouble for tearing the crotch of his pants from extended kicks, and would flip the bed up against the wall to create space to train. He would take an oversized T-shirt, trying to imitate the formal martial arts gi, and wrap a black tie around his waist in place of a black belt.

At Manyame, Lewis was in the library one day when he heard strange noises coming from the hall. Drawn to it, he went to investigate. “There were these dudes wearing these white tops, throwing kicks, the coolest thing I had ever seen!” he says. What Lewis had discovered was the Air Force Taekwondo club. From that day onwards, he attended every single session he could, training for four to five hours a day. He rapidly improved, earning the attention of senior coaches such as Honest Chabva.

Chabva, a Warrant Officer in the Air Force, became a mentor to the young Lewis, teaching him not only taekwondo, but self-confidence and self-worth. “He showed me that you’re not nothing, you’re important, something special. He was the first person to tell me that, and through taekwondo I managed to build my self-esteem.”

Within a year or two, Lewis had become the informal coach of the club. Though still a schoolboy, the Manyame soldiers respected his authority and growing skill. Both Lewis and Chabva have the porcupine as their totem, and as he started to enter competitions, Lewis, who is only 167cm tall, adopted it as his fight name. “Even lions don’t mess with porcupines because they are tiny but mighty and dangerous,” he says.

Lewis travelled to national and regional taekwondo tournaments, winning gold medals and quickly becoming the Zimbabwean national champion. He began to coach at the University of Zimbabwe, and also won the 2017 Korean Ambassadors Trophy.
When he completed high school, Lewis decided to commit to a career in martial arts. Kicked out of his sister’s house after refusing to join the army, he accepted an invitation from his brother Ian to move to Cape Town and explore opportunities on the South African MMA circuit.

While transiting through Johannesburg, carrying no money, Lewis was robbed of his bus ticket to Cape Town. It would be the last time he ever used force outside of the ring. “I thought to myself, ‘If I get stranded here, if this guy takes my ticket, what do I do?’” Lewis fought back. “I gave that man four or five punches. I needed to do it. I was supposed to do it.”

You cannot escape the fact MMA teaches skills that are dangerous and potentially lethal. For Lewis though, uncontrolled violence is the antithesis of MMA. “Violence is not good and it should not be associated with martial arts. As martial artists, we avoid being violent. We want to stop violence. Martial arts is about taming the energy to fight. Take a person like me who used to have anger issues: martial arts tamed that energy in me. It was split from my personality, and went all the way down to my shadow,” he says.

“The more I trained, the less I fought outside the ring. I’ve noticed that as people start to train, they fight less. As they learn they are capable of badly hurting other people, they ask, ‘Is this situation worth breaking every bone in his body for?’ Trust me, if I were to fight, there would be a trail of bodies, but I avoid conflicts.”

After recovering his bus ticket from the thief, Lewis arrived safely in Cape Town, where his brother Ian helped him to settle in and together they searched for a good place to train. Lewis found it hard at first, but then he came across Straight Blast Gym (SBG), an MMA gym run by coach Steve Bazzea.

Coach Bazzea’s career had begun in karate, where he had competed for the South African national team. But after considerable success in the discipline, he began to question it: “I could see that karate was limited, so I started to explore what else was out there,” says Coach Bazzea. When the MMA UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) league arrived in the Nineties, Bazzea was amazed. “Two people were stepping in and beating the crap out of each other but the small guy wearing a gi was winning. What sorcery was this?”

That sorcery was called Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ), and it was a martial art that had been born in Japan and then developed in Brazil. Based on grappling, submissions and ground fighting, BJJ revolves around the concept that a smaller, weaker person can successfully defend themselves against a stronger, heavier opponent by using leverage and weight distribution, taking the fight to the ground and using a variety of holds and submissions to defeat them. Coach Bazzea pursued BJJ from then on, training with SBG’s Matt Thornton, and eventually he earned his black belt.

Lewis grins when he remembers his first meeting with Coach Bazzea. ‘I walked up to him and said, ‘Hey, I would like to fight MMA. Can you please show me how it’s done?’ And he said, ‘OK, you might be a second dan black belt in taekwondo, but you cannot fight. You need to learn how to fight.’ I was shocked. Then he said, ‘I can help you by training you in jiu-jitsu. Then we’ll see how it goes from there.’”

Lewis’ introduction to jiu-jitsu rocked him. “In Zimbabwe, everybody knew that I was a beast at taekwondo. I went to Cape Town and had to start again in jiu-jitsu as a white belt, as a beginner, knowing absolutely nothing. It took away everything, all the self-esteem, everything. I was shattered.”

Over the next year, Coach Bazzea built Lewis back up into a more rounded, polished fighter, training him in BJJ, wrestling, Muay Thai and striking. “Lewis is an absolute sponge,” say Coach Bazzea. “You can show him something and before you know it, he’s doing it against you.”

The two built up a close relationship, and the orphaned Lewis looked up to the older man. “Coach Bazzea looked after me, he would make sure that I was well, that I had food, that I was safe and secure.” On his side, Coach Bazzea quickly saw what Lewis wanted from him. “I recognised that immediately,” he says. “I refused to let him put me on any kind of pedestal. I told him I would be his coach and I would be his mentor. But father figure is a big ask.”

While Lewis was still only a BJJ white belt, Coach Bazzea entered him in his first MMA fight in April 2019, a lightweight bout in the Ultimate Warrior Fighting Championship in Cape Town. Lewis was terrified. “It started to hit me that I was going to be in an MMA fight. Every part of my body was screaming, ‘Don’t do it, don’t do it!’”

Lewis needn’t have worried. He won the fight — which had been scheduled to go for three rounds of three minutes — in one minute and 30 seconds. “That fight really made people a bit scared of me,” Lewis says, grinning. After winning his second MMA fight — again in less than two minutes — he was invited to fight for the Professional Fighting Championship (PFC) Lightweight Title against Nigerian Patrick Mbokwe.

As Coach Bazzea had to travel a few days before the fight, Lewis worried about not having him in his corner. “How can I fight without him?” Lewis thought. But just as Lewis stepped into the ring, he saw Coach Bazzea arrive at the venue. The fight began and over the first three rounds Lewis kept away from Mbokwe’s fists, softening him up with kicks before taking him down to the ground.

By the fourth round both fighters were out of energy. “I was way past exhausted,” says Lewis. “I was gone. My system was fried, everything was sore. I don’t even know how I kept fighting. It was sheer willpower.” Then, just as Mbokwe gained the upper hand as they grappled on the floor, Coach Bazzea called out, “There’s an armbar!”

Normally when he’s fighting, Lewis is oblivious to everyone around him, shutting out the world beyond the fight. But Coach Bazzea’s voice is the only one that penetrates this intense focus. “The crowd is going wild,” says Lewis. “It’s loud, but Coach Bazzea doesn’t shout. He just speaks, and I can always pick out his voice in the crowd easily.”
Lewis found the armbar and locked it in. But as he squeezed tighter, Mbokwe refused to give in. “I could feel the man’s arm, the tendons over-stretching, and then snapping,” Lewis recalls. Eventually Mbokwe tapped out in agony. The victorious Lewis was crowned PFC Lightweight Champion, winner of the biggest fighting promotion in Cape Town.

Then COVID hit South Africa. The ensuing lockdowns wrought havoc with Lewis’ fledgeling career, limiting his opportunities for experience and exposure.

When the first lockdown was eventually eased in late 2020, Lewis was offered the chance to defend his PFC title against Congolese challenger Emmanuel Sita. During the fight, Lewis felt like he could see through everything Sita was doing. However, he allowed the bigger fighter, who had a record of slamming opponents on the ground and knocking them out, to think he had the upper hand. “I heard Sita’s coach yelling, ‘He’s scared, he’s running away!’” So Lewis backed off, allowing Sita to follow him in before Lewis stepped quickly forward and, with a lightning-fast jab, broke Sita’s jaw.

Sita fell flat on his back and the referee stopped the fight. When the disoriented fighter regained consciousness he tried to get up and keep fighting. When Sita eventually understood he had lost, he broke down into tears. “I felt bad,” says Lewis, “but that’s the nature of the game. It’s me or him.” Lewis had successfully defended his PFC title.

Thereafter Lewis triumphed at a number of jiu-jitsu tournaments, winning the African Championships Gi and No Gi Divisions, and eventually reaching a ranking of first in South Africa and tenth in the global Abu Dhabi Jiu-Jitsu Pro (AGP) rankings. That April, he was invited to the IMMAF Africa Championships, fighting under the Zimbabwean flag. This was the largest MMA promotion in Africa, and the championship would feature three knock-out rounds.

Lewis’ first fight was against the favourite, South African Alistair Kunene. “Man, I kicked him fast and I kicked him hard the whole time,” says Lewis. “I kept kicking him. I was throwing the flashy kicks, the spinning kicks, the high kicks. Everyone was drawn to my fight because it was entertaining, it was fun to watch.”

Lewis won on points, and his next fight was against Namibian Geraldo Bok. “I have never hit anyone that hard in my life. The blows could be heard around the whole venue.” Bok stopped the fight, and Lewis advanced to the finals.

Lewis’ final opponent was a tough Zambian called Ken Nyaondo. Lewis knew it would not be easy. “Nyaondo was solid. He could kick, and he was really good at wrestling.”

Lewis began with his favoured taekwondo kicks, but Nyaondo easily dodged these and grabbed Lewis in a bodylock. “Any time Nyaondo grabs his opponents in a fight, they are done for.

They don’t get up,” says Lewis. Luckily, having prepared for this situation with Coach Bazzea, Lewis had a plan: he rolled forward, catching his opponent off-guard and maneuvering himself into mount, the most dominant position for a grappler.

For the next three minutes, Lewis kept hitting Nyaondo, but the Zambian was tough and survived the assault. In the next round, Lewis launched a big kick with his left foot. Nyaondo saw it coming and blocked it with his shin, snapping the tendons in Lewis’ foot. “I could feel my foot just flopping on my leg. There was no pain, but I could feel that I had no control over my left leg.”

Sizing up his situation, Lewis decided that he had to continue with his strategy: he had to keep kicking. Using his injured, dangling foot, he continued to land kick after kick to his opponents’ ribs. As these kicks hit their target, Nyaondo gradually started to back out of attacks, and Lewis pursued him doggedly.

The final round came and the bell rang. Lewis won by unanimous decision.

Only after the fight ended did Lewis start to feel the intense pain in his foot. It had been badly injured, and he couldn’t put any weight on it. He had to be helped onto the podium where he was crowned the IMMAF 2022 African Champion. His rankings jumped to first in Africa and seventh in the world. Lewis “Porcupine” Mataya had arrived, and Zimbabwean MMA had been put on the map.

“Where did you get this permit, boetie? Come with me.”

In August 2022, standing with Coach Bazzea at Johannesburg airport’s immigration counter, fresh from his success as the IMMAF champion and en route to a fight in Lusaka, Lewis immediately knew that something had gone horribly wrong.

Earlier that year he had been introduced to an agent at South Africa’s Department of Home Affairs who had promised to provide him with a work visa in return for a payment of 10,000 rand. Lewis, who was desperate to formalise his residence status, jumped at the offer. As the agent requested formal documents, such as radiology reports and employment records, Lewis assumed the fee was only to push his application to the front of the queue. When he received the permit he was thrilled. It was only six months later at the OR Tambo immigration counter that he realised he had been duped.

Lewis felt his whole life collapsing around him. “Everything just caved in, right there. All the ambitions, everything, just came crashing down.” Doors had been opening up for Lewis — he had been offered fights in Mauritius and across Africa, he had a training camp planned in Ireland with former UFC champion Connor McGregor’s coach — and just as quickly, these doors had shut.

“It was an absolute shock. I wasn’t disappointed,” says Coach Bazzea, “but I knew it was serious. I knew we were going to lose three to five years. I’m saddened by the fact that he was given the wrong advice, and it has got in the way of his dreams.”

“I could see Coach Bazzea was holding back tears,” says Lewis. “That was painful to watch.”

Lewis and his coach embraced and then Lewis was whisked off into the bowels of the airport, alone and at the mercy of the police. He was transferred to Kempton Park Police Station where he was held overnight before appearing before a judge the next day. He was forced to sign an admission of guilt which came with a large fine, or else he would face jail time.

While he organised the cash for the fine, Lewis was transferred to Modderbee Prison in an armed, eight-vehicle convoy, where he spent a tense week in the cells, his cellmates a range of convicted criminals. Claustrophobic, alone and afraid, Lewis managed to befriend a couple of Zimbabweans who were being tried for armed robbery. To gain respect, Lewis showed them his Instagram account and described his martial arts career to anyone who was interested. But he realised immediately that survival would require more psychological than physical strength. “I knew I could destroy any one of them in a fight,” says Lewis. “But if there were three of them, or five?” So he adopted a conciliatory approach, showing deference to both guards and inmates, and buying favours with the little cash he had on him.

“Being in jail, the anticipation of release was actually way worse than the experience. I met some really cool guys in there. In there, you see the best and worst of humanity. You see people doing good deeds, not because they want something from you, but because they want to help the newcomers.”
With the fine paid, several days passed before Lewis was transferred back to the police station at Kempton Park. There he was informed that he would be deported back to Harare the next day. The police returned his cell phone and he immediately called his girlfriend, Ashleen, in Cape Town. She was understandably devastated by the news of his imminent deportation. “I reassured her, nothing will happen to us. I will try everything I can for us to always be together,” says Lewis. “I could see she was anxious so we did a video call and I got onto my knees and I proposed! She thought I was joking at first!” Ashleen said yes, but it would be over a month before the newly engaged couple would actually see each other again in person.

Lewis was flown back to Zimbabwe, prohibited from entering South Africa again. It was a crushing blow to the fighter who, like many Zimbabweans, had been attracted to South Africa by the promise of economic opportunity. He had fought hard to make a name for himself, built up a reputation and a brand. And like many economic migrants he had struggled with paperwork and obtaining the legal right to live and work there. And just like that it was over. As Coach Bazzea points out, “If the UFC comes to Africa, they won’t come to Zimbabwe. They’ll come to SA.”

Arriving back in Harare, Lewis began the task of rebuilding his life, determined to get himself back on his feet. His first step was to start Harare’s first MMA gym. “I said to myself, ‘If the opportunity to fight again should arise, I want to be ready.”’ But Lewis needed a place where he could train daily, as well as the correct equipment and training partners. As none of these existed, he decided to build it himself. Coach Bazzea had always had a vision of setting up an SBG in Zimbabwe, so he convinced SBG’s founder Thornton to grant Lewis the rights to set up an affiliate gym here.

One of the challenges of starting a gym with no capital is the expense of importing equipment. Resourceful as always, Lewis spent time researching available materials, then designing and creating his own line of equipment, working with local upholsterers and artisans. “We have everything we need in Zimbabwe.”

Within a few weeks Lewis had working prototypes of fighting shorts, shin pads and punching bags, designs which he is still refining, many months later. “All this is new to me, so it’s a bit intimidating, but I push those feelings aside. My vision is to supply the whole world!”

Bit by bit, the Harare gym is taking shape. It brings Lewis income and attracts a range of students, from middle-aged, white-collar professionals, to young kids. “Few things make me happier than making progress and getting things done.”

Now Lewis is focusing his effort on Tyler and Kuda, two of his students he is teaching to become training partners, giving him more time to focus on the next steps he needs to take to return to MMA competition.

“My vision, my ambition, transcends me. I cannot see where it ends. Looking inside, I cannot see the boundaries of my vision. I want the gym to create fighters who are going to go into the UFC. I want them to fight, to win, to become champions. And I want to be a world champion too.”

Realistically, with South Africa no longer open to him and with his body-clock ticking, Lewis urgently needs sponsorship to compete in a big international fight if his career as a fighter is to progress. As his childhood coach Honest Chabva says, “You won’t lose your money if you invest in Lewis.”

Lewis is upbeat about his prospects. “This is a new season,” he says. “When this season changes, it’s going to be for the best, for the better.”

Whatever happens next in his life, it’s clear that Lewis remains undefeated.

Words and photographs by Simon de Swardt
Zimbabwe SBG Gym, 1 Portal Road,
Highlands, Harare. Call: +263 783 048 431,
email: lewismataya1@gmail.com