When Mansher Khera was in his early teens, he witnessed his uncle pin down a police officer. The setting was a kabaddi match – near his hometown of Tarn Taran Sahib in Punjab – where his uncle’s team was taking on the police corps’ side.
“I just remember watching them, and thinking ‘This is badass’,” said Khera, speaking from his car parked outside his gym in Jersey City.
Two decades later, Khera has made a career by pinning people down. He started with Brazilian jiu-jitsu, cut his teeth on kickboxing and is now bossing the world of Mixed Martial Arts (MMA). And he won’t rest till he makes it to the ultimate destination: the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).
The First Chapter
Khera was born in Queens, New York to Sikh immigrants who moved to the States in the 1980s. Soon after, his parents sent Mansher to Punjab, where he studied at the Dalhousie Public School in Badhani till he was 13. It was not easy to live halfway around the world from his parents, but as a result, he was able to spend time with his grandmother, uncle and aunt in his ancestral hometown of Tarn Taran Sahib. Here he witnessed the robust tradition of pehlwani, a traditional form of wrestling practiced in North India; in fact, his kabaddi-playing uncle was also a wrestler.
“I knew right away that I wanted to be like him,” he said. “Till date, whenever I see him, I get very excited because he invokes that feeling in me!”
Khera returned to Queens for high school, and in his senior year, the Brazilian jiu-jitsu bug bit him. At 17, he told his parents that he wanted to pursue a career in the martial arts. It didn’t go down too well with his father.
“First, he tried to kick me out of the house. Then he told me I need to get a job and pay rent if I want to stay there,” said Khera. “My parents, man, they had very different goals for me, they wanted me to go down the line of medicine or law.”
In hindsight, Khera understands why his parents had reservations. As immigrants, they had worked hard to create a comfortable, stable life for their son. They were understandably not happy at the thought of him getting bruised and battered just to win Brazilian jiu-jitsu tournaments that paid little to no money even if he won.
“I don’t think he believed in my passion at the time, you know, he just thought that I was just going through a phase,” said Khera.
Eventually though, it was difficult to argue with Khera’s dedication, and the trophies he was bringing home. His father relented and agreed to support his son as he began scripting his fighting career.
Switch to Kickboxing, MMA
The first few times Khera watched a UFC fight on TV, he didn’t think much of it – he couldn’t “really connect with it,” he said. Then, he watched the reality show Ultimate Fighter, and he knew that the UFC was where he belonged.
The show features professional fighters who live and train together, and fight against each other for the coveted prize of a UFC contract. Strangely enough, it wasn’t the prize that attracted Khera; it was the fighter’s life outside of the arena, the lifestyle and training routines that appealed to him.
“I like training and learning and pushing myself, that was the biggest thing for me. Fighting is just like the end result of that… that’s just what you do, right?” he said.
That’s not to say that Khera wasn’t ambitious – training up to five hours a day, six days a week, braving painful blows, and living life perpetually in pain because of injuries, you can’t afford to not be ambitious.
Khera had decided that the UFC was his goal, but he had trained as a Brazilian jiu-jitsu fighter. The UFC is a MMA competition, which is a completely different fighting style from Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
“I didn’t want to rush. I didn’t want to be one of those guys [who went] straight into MMA without taking my time because I understood that it was a different sport,” said Khera.
Instead of making the jump to MMA, he switched from Brazilian jiu-jitsu – which is more ground fighting – to kickboxing, which is predominantly striking, or using arms, legs or the head to strike an opponent. He believed that training in these two drastically different martial arts would give him the edge when he eventually entered the MMA arena, the wild west of fighting where anything goes.
The greatest MMA fighters usually have a strong background in at least one martial art. Khera is proficient in two – Brazilian jiu-jitsu and kickboxing – giving him the edge he hoped to have.
Since becoming a pro MMA fighter in 2021, Khera boasts an undefeated streak of 9-0. In November 2024, Khera won the prestigious Fury Fighting Championship, held in Fury, Texas. This is a prominent feeder promotion for the UFC, which means that the logical next step for Khera is the UFC. Other fighters like Nazim Sadykhov, Alex Morono, Joshua Van and Diego Lopes followed the same path enroute to the UFC.
In keeping with his success in MMA, at a friend’s suggestion, he has also picked a new ring name for himself: Mansher ‘New Era’ Khera. He credits his years of training for his achievements.
“I felt I’ve been way more prepared than all my opponents, because you can have the biggest heart in the world, you can be the toughest guy, but if you don’t have the skill set, I feel like that is the base for everything.”
Setbacks, Sikh Heritage
A real, tangible shot at a UFC contract hasn’t come easy for Khera. Apart from the general bruising that comes from being a martial artist, he has partially torn hip and shoulder labrums, and has suffered multiple knee injuries from his Brazilian jiu-jitsu days.
“I have two herniated discs in my middle back, and that was definitely the worst injury. I would train for two-three weeks, compete, and then after the competition, my back would be so locked up that I would have to take two months off.”
After the back injury in 2014, he had another challenge. He fell out with his long-time coach and Brazilian jiu-jitsu legend Marcelo Garcia and ended up switching to a different academy in 2017. At tumultuous times like these, Khera drew strength from his Sikh heritage, of which he is extremely proud.
Khera talks with great respect about the martial tradition within the Sikh community, and their insistence on bravery, honor, and service. He singles out Indian revolutionary Bhagat Singh as a seminal influence – he even sports a tattoo of the young freedom fighter on his abdomen.
“For sure, if it wasn’t for my Sikh upbringing, I would be a different person. I wouldn’t be who I am, I don’t even know if I’d even be a fighter!”
Though he denies that martial artists get used to punches, Khera believes the struggles he faces in the ring – and in life – pale in comparison to those that his ancestors have faced.
He grew up listening to the story of Baba Deep Singh, an 18th century warrior of the Sikh Empire from his hometown Tarn Taran. According to legend, he was decapitated in battle, but soldiered on, holding his severed head in one hand, and his sword in another.
“It’s not hard to be who I am today, when I think of myself coming from that kind of tradition,” Khera affirmed. “Even my dad, the work that he’s put himself through to build his family here, that’s 100 times harder than what I have to do.”
Next Stop, Madison Square Garden
In the world of UFC, the confrontational nature of the sport breeds fighters with aggressive personalities, even outside of competition. While their moves in the cage are dramatic, their exploits outside the cage become lore, consumed ravenously by fans of the sport; some would say the sport self-selects in-your-face, brash personalities.
Like Khabib Nurmagomedov, who sparred with a bear cub as a child, trash-talking Irishman Conor McGregor, and Sean Strickland, controversial political statements have raised eyebrows. While fights routinely break out during weigh-ins, Khera believes in minding his business, focusing on training and skills, and delivering results on the day of the fight.
“I don’t really try to intimidate my opponents, but if they ever want to take it there, I’m more than willing to take it there as well,” he said. “I’m not gonna let nobody push me down, but I usually man, I’m pretty chill.”
Under the cool demeanor lies an intense confidence in his abilities. “I think once I enter the UFC, in the first few fights. I’m gonna kill these guys!”
After honing his skills for fifteen years, he believes he can make it to the highest echelon of mixed martial arts, and his undefeated record suggests he can get there quickly.
“At the end of 2025, there’s going to be a UFC card (a set of UFC matches) at Madison Square Garden. It happens every year, and I’m from New York, so the biggest dream I can think of right now would be to fight on that card,” he smiles..
“That would be dope.”
