Aleksandar Rakić was born on February 6, 1992, the son of a bus driver from the Socialist Republic of Serbia who settled in Vienna. He grew up in Vienna-Ottakring as one of three children (a brother and a sister) and started kickboxing in 2005 at the age of 13. Over the years, he worked his way up the ranks and became Vienna national champion, among other things. He also briefly appeared as a boxer and had three official fights. After he said that kickboxing and boxing had become "too boring" and he "wanted more", Rakić switched to mixed martial arts (MMA) in 2011. By the time he made this switch, he had reportedly already competed in around 40 official kickboxing matches. On October 15, 2011, the fighter of Serbian origin contested his first MMA fight at the Rock the Cage 2 event in Greifswald. However, Rakić lost this fight after just 4:34 minutes in the first round against Christian Radke from Greifswald by submission.