UFC's Cung Le visits, donates to Vietnam orphanage
The days leading up to a fight are of crucial importance to an athlete. It's in these final days that the requisite selfishness of a training camp must reach it's peak so that the competitor has the focus they need to battle on fight night.
UFC middleweight Cung Le has, at least in part, eschewed the usual solitary selfishness just days before he takes on Michael Bisping in Macau in the main event of UFC Fight Night Saturday. As a child, Le and his family fled Saigon and before hitting China to ready for his fight, the San Shou expert stopped in his native Vietnam to visit an orphanage.
Le was so moved by the experience that he says he decided to give most of his sponsorship money for the Bisping fight to the orphanage to help provide for the children there. “I knew how crazy it was, but when I showed up there, it was very emotional,” Le said in a recent MMA Junkie interview.
“[The orphanage only takes kids that were abandoned, and a lot of the kids, they have issues. Whether it’s with nerve damage or with brain swelling. It was something amazing for me to see.
“I spent my day off going to this orphanage that was part of a temple...Basically, instead of taking the money from [my sponsors], I spent the money and bought a ton of rice and toys and candy, and gave the abbot there the rest of the money.”
It's heart-warming to see a fighter think of others in the midst of an important and stressful time for themselves. Check out the video below of an emotional Le talking about his own sudden escape from Vietnam as a child.
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