Amine Ballafrikh was born in a small town near Rabat, the capital of Morocco. As the youngest of nine children, and with his father working in the U.S., he started working at seven years of age by selling plastic bags and sharpening knives in markets. He became a plasterer at the age of 14, which was also when he started training in Muay Thai. Up until that point, he says, he was always getting into street fights. He had his first amateur fight three months after starting training, and lost. The shocked young fighter was convinced he’d won his fight, and only after watching the video realized that he was not invincible and intensified his training regimen. He won his first national title at the age of 16, and four years later moved to Alexandria to live with his father. After working a number of odd jobs, and without speaking English, he moved to ...