Frans Mlambo: From Nightmare 2022 To The Biggest Opportunity Of His Career

Coming into 2022, Frans Mlambo was riding high off the back of his Combate Global tournament win with three consecutive victories. Set to fight for a title in the coming months, “The Black Mamba” went from one of the biggest years of his pro career to his most difficult one to date. After not fighting for the entire year, Mlambo is back in action on July 8th, ready to make up for all the lost time with the biggest opportunity of his career.

On top of tragedies occurring in his personal life, not being able to secure a fight was beginning to pile up the issues for Frans. Signing with First Round Management, Mlambo got his exit from Combate after he had been stuck waiting for a fight that didn’t seem any closer to happening. Whilst that was one hurdle cleared, there was still no money coming in, forcing the SBG fighter to return to landscaping and continue biding his time. 

Speaking exclusively to Violent Money TV, Frans Mlambo detailed his 2022 nightmare and where his mindset was at then compared to reflecting on it now:

“Everything just went wrong in that year, I know you say that from time to time, that everything went wrong but I’m talking literally nothing was going right for a good few months. Everything just kept falling apart, even down to the littlest things. It just made no sense.”

Mlambo continued:

“It was the worst man. I’ve talked about it so much that I can’t always go into detail about it, you know what I’m saying. Anytime I think back on the year, it’s just flipping terrible but I’ve had the worst time man but right now what I’m concentrating on is the fact that I’m literally sitting here 15 days away from a fight and I’ve been waiting 18 months to fight”

As Frans points out, his fortunes turned in 2023. After sitting on the sidelines, hungry to get back in there and continue his winning run with nothing coming together, the 32-year old was offered two career changing opportunities on the same day. With a clear fork in the road, Mlambo was forced to choose between participating in the 31st season of The Ultimate Fighter or signing with the PFL to compete in the European series. Unsure whether his SBG teammate Conor McGregor would be coaching the season quite yet and with an improved offer from the Professional Fighters League, the South African-Irishman signed on the dotted line to join the PFL’s roster.

After his unavoidable career hiatus, Frans is ready to pick the pace back up by kick-starting his PFL season on July 8th in Berlin. Facing off with former Cage Warriors champion and previous opponent Dom Wooding in the opening round, the match-up is one that many expected to see in Dublin for the finals. With everything he has been through to get to this stage, the PFL’s tournament format suits “The Black Mamba” to a tee. Win or go home, it’s that simple and with 2022 fully in the rear view mirror, Frans Mlambo has no time for looking back.

“You know what I take from that (2022), gold is refined in the fire and I went through some heat that year so we better see some gold and shit going on in that cage.”

Watch the full interview below: