Sean Pero, a 26-year-old Israeli Druze fighter rising in the mixed martial arts (MMA) world, has his sights set on the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) and, eventually, a world title.
Yet just over a decade ago, he would sit alone on his bus commute to school in Haifa. He recalls how after his family moved from Ramat Gan to the northern Druze town of Daliat al-Carmel, he struggled to adjust, feeling as though he had been torn away from everything he once knew.
All the while, Pero did not speak Arabic and was unsure how he would make friends. Still, he said, even then, “I believed I was meant for great things.”
Building a fighter
For Pero, the MMA cage is a place where he represents himself. He said the loneliness he dealt with as a child, and the setbacks he later faced as an adult, including a serious injury, helped build him into the fighter he is now.
But his career also carries a broader significance: Most Israeli athletes competing on global stages are Jewish.
The Druze people, he noted, are widely considered Arab. When he fights and waves both the Israeli and the Druze flag, he said he is making a point about belonging to both.
“I’m Israeli first, but a Druze Israeli,” he said. “For the Arabs, they don’t understand. But for me, this is how it should be if you want a good future. This is me. These are my origins. My grandparents, my father, my mother, my everything were Druze. But before everything, I’m Israeli.”
Pero’s professional record stands at eight wins and one loss, with five victories coming by knockout. But long before he began building that record, he said, he first had to learn how to navigate isolation, change, and pain.
He began training in MMA at 14, after several difficult years following the move to Daliat al-Carmel. At the time, he said, he was looking for something that would give him direction.
The spark came, in part, from the 2008 film Never Back Down, whose story of a young man moving to a new place and finding himself through martial arts resonated with him.
Pero fell in love with the movie and found himself watching it on a daily basis. It wasn’t long before he began looking for MMA training near him, and he eventually found a place in Haifa.
“From the first day, I remember, I said, ‘I’m gonna be world champion,’” he recounted.
At first, he added, he didn’t know whether he had the potential to reach the highest level, but he was determined to succeed.
“To be honest, I wasn’t that good,” he admitted. “But I said, ‘I’m gonna find my meaning through this thing,’ and I doubled down on that.”
By age 18, Pero had made his professional MMA debut, winning by knockout. His next fight also ended in a knockout, this time against an older opponent. He said that at the time, he found himself on a rapid rise.
“Any moment I could, I compete, compete, compete, trying to get another medal, another medal.”
First roadblock
Then came what he described as his first major roadblock.
After entering the army, Pero tore his ACL knee ligament. He underwent reconstruction and said it took about four years before he returned to professional fighting. The injury, he said, changed him.
“That was my first roadblock,” he stated. “That’s what built me, really, as a fighter.”
Pero served in the IDF with an athlete status, a framework that gave him more flexibility for training and competitions abroad. But because of the injury, he said, he was not able to take full advantage of it.
During his service, he was placed in a unit that works with soldiers from Israel’s minority sectors, which include Druze, Bedouins, Muslims, and Christians. He said the experience reinforced his belief in integration through military service.
“It’s very important for us to integrate as a society through the army. We are all under the same roof, under the same country. And yeah, we need to defend ourselves,” he said. “In the army, you see that we’re all the same.”
After recovering from his injury and completing his military service, he moved back to Tel Aviv to train and coach. Then, with the money he had earned, Pero took his martial arts career to Thailand.
Professional necessity
For Pero, leaving Israel was a professional necessity.
“In Israel, when you barely have a fighter, and the fighters you have are abroad, it’s pretty hard,” he said.
He compared his investment in fighting to the way others invest in higher education. “My friends paid for universities,” he said. “I paid for training camps, and I bet on myself.”
His search for the right environment took him first to Las Vegas, but he said the fit was not right. He was training with high-level fighters but felt he had plateaued.
Moving his training to Brazil changed that.
There, he said, sparring felt almost like a weekly fight, with three rounds, corners, crowds, and footage to review afterward.
At first, the intensity frustrated him, but his coaches and training partners were supportive, showing him where he could improve and pushing him forward. They were willing to answer questions and analyze details for hours.
“I grew. I got better. The sparring looked better,” he said. “And it’s just compounding. Mindset is everything, before all.”
Within a month, he recounted, he learned more than he had in a year in the United States.
Since then, he said, he has been on the rise.
Pero believes he is close to reaching the UFC, though he said his real goal is not simply to get there. He wants to arrive ready.
“I’m far from my ultimate goal because my goal is to become world champion, not just in the UFC,” he asserted.
He believes he may be one or two years away from the UFC and three to five years from a title. But he said he is not interested in slowly growing into the promotion.
“The moment I’m there, I want to run through the division,” he said. “I want to make history.”
For the boy who once sat alone on the bus, trying to find meaning in a life that had suddenly changed, the destination is now clear.
Now, said Pero, reaching the top is just a matter of time.■