Issue 191

July 2020

Whether giving their money, time, skill, or support, the COVID-19 pandemic has brought out the best in mixed martial artists around the world.

Fighters are usually best known for their actions in the cage, but in the face of the COVID-19 global pandemic, many of them will be remembered for the way they fought for their local communities. 

Canceled events, missed paychecks, no training, little structure, and for the minute no idea of when life will get back to normal. This is the life that many in the MMA world are currently facing with COVID-19 bringing the MMA schedule to a standstill in March and April.

The UFC is doing its best to bring back a sense of normality with events taking place in Florida and the mysterious ‘Fight Island’, but for the most part the scene has struggled with no shows, gyms closing, coaches out of work, and fighters sitting on the sidelines.

Like many industries, MMA has suffered massively in these unprecedented times and with most fighters essentially contractors, it’s fair to say that they have suffered as much as anyone financially. If they don’t fight, they don’t get paid. 

The only exception, of course, being fighters currently contracted by the Professional Fighters League (PFL). When it was announced back in April that the 2020 season of PFL had been canceled due to COVID-19, CEO Peter Murray confirmed that all PFL fighters would continue to receive their monthly cash stipends throughout the rest of the year.

For fighters outside of the PFL, however, their focus will remain on when and if they can get back in the cage before the end of the year. Suffice to say, it’s a worrying time to be a professional fighter but many of them haven’t just buried their heads in the sand. In actual fact, it’s been quite the opposite. 

Across the MMA community, from the top of the sport to the local regional shows, there have been amazing examples of fighters doing their bit for their local communities. 

One man who has worked tirelessly for those in need is former UFC interim lightweight champion, Dustin Poirier and his message has always been clear: “I am a fighter. It’s what I do. I want to use my platform to fight for as many people as I can.”

Poirier and his wife, Jolie registered The Good Fight Foundation in 2018 after they began auctioning off items of fight memorabilia from Dustin’s career and donating the money to causes around their hometown of Louisiana. The foundation has managed to raise thousands of dollars for local initiatives and it was important to the Poirier family that they step up to the plate to help when the COVID-19 pandemic hit. 

“Ever since my wife and I started the foundation, we like to do stuff in the local community that affects the people around us,” Poirier recently told MMA Fighting. “This is where we grew up and where we live and we have done stuff outside the state of Louisiana, but we really wanted to help the people on the frontlines during this pandemic. Even if it is as small as something like providing them with a meal and with a lunch, we just want to help them out in any way that we can.”

Having previously raised enough money to provide 3,000 meals for their local Second Harvest Food Bank after selling the trunks, shirts, and wraps that he wore during his fight against Eddie Alvarez at UFC 211, the Poiriers made another donation in April. This time around, Poirier teamed up with local pizzeria Deano’s Pizza and even made some of the pizzas himself.

“We’ve given 1000 meals to three hospitals in Lafayette, Louisiana and we’re just doing everything that we can to help our local community no matter how small the thing might be. The more people understand that [we need to help each other out] and the more people that show each other love and support each other, then the further we will go. That’s just life.”

Though Poirier has perhaps always been known for his generosity and kind heart outside of the cage, one man who doesn’t quite have that same reputation is Jon Jones. The UFC light heavyweight champion has been involved in no shortage of controversies and even earlier this year was arrested in his hometown of Albuquerque for a multitude of offenses including driving while intoxicated (DWI). Bad press seems to follow Jones, but he also needs to be applauded for some of the contributions he has made to his local community.

Last December, Jones purchased brand new coats worth $20,000 from the Burlington Coat Factory and handed them out to a crowd of over 500 people in the Albuquerque community.

“We have a lot of homeless, we have a lot of mentally ill in this community, and a lot of these guys are just misunderstood,” Jones explained to KRQE News 13. “They need help and keeping them warm is just going to be a great start for a better future.”

Jones’ generosity also came to the fore in April during the COVID-19 crisis. The UFC champion gave $25,000 to The Food Bank in Northern New Mexico to provide 100,000 meals for struggling families. 

“We’re in unprecedented times right now, but it’s important that we continue to stand together and help each other however we can,” Jones commented. “The Food Depot has done some amazing work for New Mexico. I’m honored to support and hope we can ease the burdens of families in our community.”

One man who has been linked with fighting Jones over the past couple of years is the current UFC heavyweight champion, Stipe Miocic. The Cleveland native works part-time at his local Valley View Fire Department and has been on the front lines even more during the entire COVID-19 period. 

There has been no end of talk about who and when Miocic will fight when he returns to defend his title, but all he’s focused on right now is ensuring the safety of his local community.

“Yeah it has [been tougher than usual],” Miocic recently told The Score regarding his work as a firefighter during the COVID-19 crisis. “We’ve had to be a lot more careful about what we’ve been doing and we’ve had to be a lot more armored with regards to our masks and gloves. Whenever we walk through the station we have to take our temperature and we just really have to be a lot more cautious so that we contain the spread.

“I’m just happy it feels like everything is getting better,” he continued. “I’m just hoping we don’t get a second wave of it. That’s all I care about. Fighting is not going away. It’s always going to be there. We’ve got to get rid of this thing that’s going on and make everyone feel safe and be able to live a normal life again.”

Though fighting and defending his UFC title will forever be important to him, Miocic is incredibly selfless and passionate about doing all he can for his local community. 

“I love what I do,” Miocic said. “I’m not going to sit there and run away from something I work hard to do. The reason I became a firefighter and paramedic is because my whole life I’ve been helped to get where I needed to be. This is my give-back. I love helping people. I love giving back.”

The generosity doesn’t stop there when it comes to the UFC champions. Over on the other side of the world, UFC middleweight champion, Israel Adesanya has also been reaching into his pocket to help those around him in need.

When the COVID-19 crisis hit there was a worldwide shortage of personal protection equipment (PPE) available to hospitals, care homes and other frontline workers. Sensing the need not just in his hometown of Auckland, New Zealand, but also his birthplace of Lagos, Nigeria, Adesanya donated PPE for frontline health staff. 

His contribution was of course gratefully received and the Whanganui District Health Board (DHB) chief executive Russell Simpson said he was humbled by Adesanya’s generosity.

“The DHB is extremely grateful that Israel has DHB staff and the healthcare community in his thoughts as we fight against Covid-19. On behalf of all the staff at Whanganui DHB, we thank him for his generous donation.”

Adesanya later very humbly stated: “I can’t do it for the whole world, but I can help the communities I know, the places that I have been a part of.”

Over in Ireland the PPE shortage was also a big problem during the early stages of the COVID-19 spread. Thankfully for them, the biggest star in MMA, Conor McGregor, took it upon himself to aid the national shortage and donated over $1.4 million of his own money to provide hospitals with face masks and other PPE equipment.

At the start of the crisis, McGregor used his online platforms to urge the people of Ireland to stick together to stop the spread.

“This fight needs us all,” McGregor said on Facebook in March. “We are all in the red corner together awaiting the bell. So let’s gather together and ring the bell ourselves, including the people of the rest of the world. True lockdown must begin, and it must begin now. A lockdown together. A lockdown united.”

McGregor’s words soon turned in to action and his generosity was nothing short of incredible. It’s estimated that he supplied over 50,000 items of PPE to hospitals throughout Ireland where equipment was running severely low.

Like Jones, McGregor has attracted no shortage of controversial headlines over the past few years, but when his country needed him most, he did everything he could both with his money and time, hand-delivering the equipment himself to hospitals throughout Ireland.

“Where we would be without those brave men and women, I do not know,” McGregor said regarding the frontline workers in Ireland. “May God bless them and keep them safe.”

Dr Nina Byrnes, the medical director and founder of the Generation Health Medical Clinics in Dublin, said that McGregor’s donation couldn’t have come at a better time.

“It was like Christmas,” Byrnes said on The Tonight Show. “He and his team arrived into my surgery yesterday unexpected with a box. We were so shocked we sort of said, ‘Thank you,’ and were stunned. When they went out the door, we opened the box and realized that they were gowns, and honestly, it was like Christmas. 

“My manager and I ran downstairs after them to thank them because we had been trying really hard to get gowns. We could only find them at €9 a gown and you had to order 200, and we couldn’t afford to do that. So I would have had no gowns today if not for his donation.”

McGregor’s donation was easily the biggest from the MMA world, but perhaps the most courageous was Jodie Esquibel. After being released by the UFC earlier this year after four straight losses, the 34-year-old took on the biggest challenge of her life working on the frontline in New Mexico.

“I volunteered at three locations in Gallup, New Mexico,” Esquibel told Fighters Only in May. “Gallup had one of the highest number of COVID-19 cases in the nation per capita, but I felt like I had the skillset that could be of use so I put myself forward. I initially volunteered to go to New York, but when the opportunity came to stay in my home state and help, I took it.”

Esquibel worked tirelessly alongside other medical professionals at a COVID-19 positive clinic, a local hospital, and a care home. Throughout, she was putting herself at risk, but she worked night and day to help those who needed it most.

“At all three locations we have COVID-19 positive patients,” Esquibel said. “At the COVID-19 positive clinic we monitored patients at that location before they could return home. It was made specifically to help offload some of the demands on the staff at the local hospital where I also spent a period of time filling in for some of the experienced staff who had also tested positive.

“I was never scared to go and help. People needed help and I knew I had the skills to do it. I’m a healthy person and I don’t have kids to worry about at home, so it was never really a question whether I should go or not. I knew what I had volunteered for and I was prepared mentally and physically just like I would be for a fight. In my eyes, I did a very small thing. I just did what I could.” 

Esquibel remained in Gallup for the best part of a month working multiple shifts helping patients who had tested positive for COVID-19. Most would say she was brave for stepping into a cage to fight another woman, but her efforts helping fight the COVID-19 virus in Gallup were nothing short of heroic. 

With the biggest stars in the sport such as McGregor, Miocic, Poirier, Adesanya and Jones doing all they could for their local communities, it’s often easy to overlook some of the other efforts that other stars in the sport have made. From UFC bantamweight Nathaniel Wood donating his time at a local food bank in London, Jan Blachowicz delivering food to those in need in Poland, to Darren Till, Leon Edwards and Jimi Manuwa using their spare time to come together and start a new movement against knife crime in their local UK communities. The bravery and kindness of all those in the MMA sphere has been incredible to see and it would be impossible to mention them all.

It’s been a hard period seeing fighters not being able to do what they love, though we can all take solace from the fact they did themselves and their local communities proud when they were needed. Fighters fight, but not always for themselves.