Fighting is party for Hunt

'You bring sausage, I'll bring beer'

UFC fighter Mark Hunt speaks during an interview at the Intercontinental COEX hotel, southern Seoul, Thursday. / Yonhap

By Nam Hyun-woo

Mixed martial arts fighter Mark Hunt has always been saying how the sport saved his life. For him, combat has always been a party. This time in Seoul, he will be outside of the Octagon and will watch others partying, but he seems happier than anybody else.

The “Super Samoan” attended a press event Thursday for the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Fight Night Seoul, the first-ever live UFC event to take place in Korea, which will take place at the Olympic Gymnastics Arena, Saturday. Though he will not fight in the event, he visited here as a “guest fighter,” to promote the event to Korean fans who still remember the New Zealander of Samoan descent’s decorative stint in the K-1.

“I would love to have competed here in Korea. I am really fit and ready to go, but I didn’t get the chance to get on the card, so maybe I can come back and fight some other time,” he said during an interview with The Korea Times on the sidelines of the UFC Fight Night Seoul media day event at the Intercontinental COEX hotel, southern Seoul.

After a convincing win at the UFC 193 earlier this month, Hunt tweeted that he wants to fight in the Seoul event. It drew keen interest among fans and media here who experienced the huge popularity of mixed martial arts promotions such as K-1 and Pride FC about 15 years ago. Among the giants back then, such as Fedor Emelianenko and Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic, Hunt also marked his presence and remains one of the few of those fighters still active.

“I think it’s a blessing for me,” he said. “I’m very privileged to be fighting still. I think it was nearly 15 years ago that I was fighting in K-1. I love competing in Japan and Korea and I would love to compete here again and still be fighting, I’ve been blessed with a good platform by God. It’s great.”

After another fighter was abruptly withdrawn from the event amid a doping scandal, the promoters of the Seoul event have had to change the card and expect this will cause their the event’s popularity to decline. Against this backdrop, Hunt was deemed to be the “savior” for the Seoul event, but it did not go as Hunt and the fans wanted. “I didn’t even break a sweat in the last fight and had no injuries, but I wasn’t allowed to fight this time,” Hunt said to Korean fans, pledging to have his next fight in Korea.

Though his career is running toward its twilight, the 41-year-old fighter said he is still looking for an opponent.

“If I’m not competing with some of the best fighters in the world, then I will start thinking about (retirement),” Hunt said. “Being an MMA fighter is pretty much everything to me. I come from K-1 and now I’m fighting in the biggest organization on the planet. Now you see it (fighting trend) is moving from the stand-up sport to the hybrid sports. And I’m getting better, way better.

“And If I’m still competing with some of the top 10 guys, why would I retire?”

Perhaps, his bitter childhood memories have something to do with his passion for fighting. In his book “Born to Fight,” he revealed that he was involved in horrible abuse that no child should have to face from his father.

“I only did the book only because I could help others with the struggle in life, whatever it is, whether it would be an addiction or whatever,” he said of his book. People could understand and relate to my story, and it will help them better understand their lives. … So it’s helping others in the struggle out there with life, or whatever they’re going through.“

And the boy who experienced childhood violence successfully marked himself as a committed professional fighter, who now describes fighting as a party. “I want to fight whoever wants to party. Let’s party. You bring the sausages, I bring the beer,” Hunt said.