(LifeSiteNews) — A former professional kickboxer from Germany told LifeSiteNews his story of how he became Catholic through the Eucharist and Mary.
Gordon Haupt, who now runs a Catholic YouTube channel and co-founded the Catholic lay apostolate Christkönigtum (Christ the King), said in an exclusive interview that he was baptized in the Protestant Church in Germany but did not really practice his faith growing up.
When he was 16 years old, Haupt was playing soccer outside. After kicking the ball over a fence, it landed in front of a kickboxing gym. When Haupt went to pick it up, the gym trainer asked if he wanted to “do some real sport” and come train at the gym the following evening.
Haupt decided to go, and that was the start of his kickboxing career.
He was very talented and quickly climbed up the ranks. Even though he lost some fights, he said he was very popular with event organizers. “I had such an exciting fighting style because I always tried to knock out my opponents,” he said.
When he was in the “C class” amateur league, he did not feel comfortable with his trainers anymore and continued training without a coach.
”And then from then on, I did my own thing,” he said. “I always had a few friends; we were always a group of kickboxers.”
Despite not having a coach and working a full-time job, Haupt managed to become a professional and fight in Glory, the most prestigious kickboxing promotion in the world.
”And then I fought my way up to that point,” Haupt stated. “I fought many fights. I was in Russia, South Korea, the USA, Czechia, and Poland twice. So I’ve really seen a lot of the world.”
In July 2016, Haupt stepped in to fight Anderson Silva on just two weeks’ notice because Silva’s original opponent dropped out due to injury.
“ Normally, no one would take on a fight like this with only two weeks of preparation, except me, of course,” the German former kickboxer said.
He took off two weeks from work to train in Holland to prepare for the fight, which took place in Virginia. Silva was considered one of the best kickboxers in the world at the time.
Haupt lost the fight after receiving three hard shots to the liver, but ”promoters from the US all came up to me after the fight and offered me more fights.” They apparently respected him for taking the challenge on such short notice.
“I have to say, when I fought against the best fighters in the world, I wasn’t so successful there,” Haupt told LifeSiteNews. “I had a good run up to that point, but you could see that without a trainer, without that professional support, it’s hard to keep up.”
Conversion to the Catholic faith
Haupt recalled that he started to explore the Christian faith in his mid-twenties. After watching many evangelical YouTubers and reading the Bible and evangelical literature, he joined a free church.
He said when reading the Bible, “some things really hit home for me.”
“The Lord says, ‘Whoever loves their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for my sake will find it. What good is it for a person to gain the whole world but lose their soul?’”
“And then I realized that kickboxing stood between me and God,” he said.
“Training and fighting were like idols to me. I worked and did other things, but my focus was always on training and fighting.”
“I trained every free minute I had,” he said, explaining that it had become an obsession and idol to him, even though it was not intrinsically bad.
Haupt ended his professional career, although he keeps training as a hobby to this day.
When he kept studying the Bible, he noticed that Christ clearly meant that we should eat his flesh and drink his blood in the literal sense.
“ Because in the free churches, this is seen as symbolism. But Christ says, ‘This is my body, this is my blood.’”
He then started to read the Church Fathers and realized they believed in the Real Presence.
“When I learned that the early Christians clearly described the Eucharist as what it truly is, namely the real flesh and blood of Jesus Christ, I realized that I had to convert,” he recalled.
“ For although I was ultimately converted through the Eucharist, it was the Mother of God who first inspired me to explore this path,” Haupt said.
He read a book by German priest and theologian Fr. Manfred Hauke, Mary and the Old Testament, which describes many of the prophecies about Mary prior to the New Testament.
“That’s when I first saw how much Mary is in the Bible.”
“I ordered the Apostolic Fathers, the first Christians, and then I read through them and had an inner struggle because I didn’t want to become Catholic,” he stated.
“I also had many prejudices against the Church,” he added.
“I finally had to give up, I had to surrender to the truth. As Christ says, ‘the truth will set you free,’ and that was absolute freedom.”
Catholic YouTuber and co-founder of ‘Christ the King’ apostolate
In 2020, Haupt started the Catholic YouTube channel Kathplosiv, which now has over 11,000 subscribers.
“I thought to myself, ‘It can’t be that so many Protestants in German-speaking countries are making YouTube videos where they talk absolute nonsense,’ to put it bluntly,” he told LifeSiteNews. “They have tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of subscribers because so many people are confused and there is hardly any Catholic alternative.”
So he decided to launch his own channel.
In January 2025, Haupt co-founded the traditional Catholic lay apostolate Christkönigtum (Christ the King), which engages in street evangelization, works of charity, pro-life activism, and organizes various Catholic events.
According to its website, the apostolate is “dedicated to the social kingship of Christ.”
“Our mission is to bring the radical love of Jesus into society, particularly through charitable work,” the website continues.
“We support elderly people in their daily challenges and are there for them with advice and assistance. We are also committed to feeding the needy and providing them with basic support. With a clear mission, we work to spread the message of Christ and to give love and hope through our actions. Together, we want to create a world in which charity is visible and the Gospel is proclaimed to our neighbors.”
