5 things you didn't know about UFC lightweight Paul Felder

#4 Paul Felder chose MMA over a career in acting

Paul Felder in 2011 production of 'Sylvia' at Act II Playhouse in Amber, Pennsylvania

Paul Felder has a degree in acting. He graduated in acting from University of the Arts in Philadelphia in 2008 after attending Ridley High School. He has been in a number of plays back in the day, and even co-starred with actor Pearce Bunting in a 2011 production of The Lieutenant of Inishmore.

From the stage to the Octagon 🎭🐉 @FelderPaul re-examines his roots before #UFCAuckland. pic.twitter.com/i0RAuBuvT0

— UFC (@ufc) February 18, 2020

His former mentors for the stage as well as fellow thespians speak highly of him, both as an individual and as a performer.

One of his acting professors at the University, Ernest Losso, even compared him with the likes of Robert de Niro and Al Pacino. (via ESPN)

"Whenever he would do a play or whatever, he was always the most outstanding actor in the play. He has a kind of charisma, which I guess he uses in the fight game also. That's something you can't teach. That's something a person just has to have."

"I think that's an element in him -- the kind of rage that is in him -- that you see in [Al] Pacino and [Robert] De Niro and those guys. It's a kind of element that I tried to nourish, rather than put aside. ... He could really be a very nice, quiet, gentle guy. But he's also got that other side that's quite intimidating."

When Paul Felder participated in his first amateur MMA bout in 2009, his friends from the field of acting thought it was a one-off thing - something he was trying out as an experiment.

But Felder decided that he had to do it again. The theatre's loss turned out to be the octagon's gain.

Reminder: Paul Felder went to acting school. Public speaking is not new to him and his work on the mic is due to the practice he has put in over the years https://t.co/CNNR095bIR

— creepy slowed down version of an upbeat song (@high_light) December 10, 2017