Myanmar's Biggest MMA Star Wants His People to Be Free

This article originally appeared on VICE Sports.

Myanmar is a land of few famous athletes, or really any celebrities at all.

Instead, its A-listers tend to fall in the political category, beginning with General Aung San, the father of Myanmar's independence from Britain, and ending with his daughter, Nobel Peace Prize winner and current state counselor Aung San Suu Kyi. But beyond politicians and a handful of notorious dictators and drug lords, the nation has few figures of international renown. A half-century of socialism, military coups, and isolationism will do that to a country.

This context helps explain the mania that accompanies Myanmar-born Aung La Nsang (19-10) on a Wednesday afternoon in Yangon, two days ahead of his ONE Championship middleweight world title fight against the undefeated Russian Vitaly Bigdash (9-0) on June 30.

The 32-year-old mixed martial artist sits in the lobby of a luxury hotel, surrounded by a swirling vortex of cameras. Everybody—his entourage, the police, the reporters, the photographers, the street vendors, the PR agents, the fans, the selfie-seeking security guards—needs something from him. Another quote. Another photo. Another appearance.

If he tries to escape for a moment into his Instagram feed, he'll find incessant promotions for his upcoming fight. On Facebook, a local commercial for insect repellent features him punching out mosquitoes in a locker room; it has racked up 613,000 views in less than 24 hours.

There is no respite from the noise for Myanmar's biggest sports star, but at least nobody is asking him to weigh on the country's complicated politics. Aung La is from the northern state of Kachin, home to one of the several ethnic conflicts that have raged in the country's border regions since the military coup of 1962. He left to study in the US during a ceasefire, but the conflict reignited in 2011; since then, fighting has displaced approximately 130,000 civilians—77 percent of them women—into refugee camps across the state. Aung La, however, has escaped most of the direct impacts of the violence, having received political asylum in the US after moving there in 2003.

He discovered MMA after moving to the States, eventually going pro and fighting in regional circuits. People in Myanmar first took notice of Aung La in 2012 after he knocked out an opponent during the first round of a CFFC fight and waved a Kachin flag in celebration. Back then, video of the moment caught the attention of those in his home state. Five years later, the rest of the country has jumped on the bandwagon.

"I mean, it's weird," Aung La says, sounding a bit alarmed by the immensely niche popularity he commands in the Golden Land. "I don't know if I dislike it… but I could care less."

"The only reason I am here is to get that world title."

For a while, Aung La was just another guy trying to make it on the US circuits, and a virtual unknown in his native country, where MMA has traditionally struggled to get a foothold against the national sport of lethwei. But support began to surge when he signed with ONE Championship, Asia's largest MMA enterprise, in 2014.

The first Myanmar national to join a major international promotion, Aung La agreed to a fight in Yangon against Egypt's Muhammed Ali in March 2016. By the time he arrived in his old stomping grounds, he discovered that he was no longer just a Kachin video sensation—a rabid fan base comprising wide swaths of Myanmar's various ethnic groups wanted to claim him as their own, as well.

Victories in that first fight and the next one in Yangon eight months later have now made him a nationwide icon, recognizable to anyone in Myanmar person with an active Facebook account.

"Whenever Aung La shows up anywhere in Myanmar, expect a massive throng of fans," says Loren Mack, ONE Championship's public relations head. "He commands a superstar presence."

In the US, however, there are no throngs waiting for Aung La Nsang—just classes full of children waiting to learn Brazilian jiu jitsu. Aung La became a US citizen in 2015 and runs a branch of the Crazy88 MMA school and gym in the Baltimore area, where he lives with his wife and son, teaching and training for fights in his free time while enjoying relative anonymity.

"The guys that watch ONE, the guys that watch not just the UFC but the real hardcore MMA fans, they might stop me," he says, mulling over whether his fame translates to the States. "But usually… no." Here in Myanmar, everyone stops him, from Muslim cab drivers to Buddhist nationalist monks to armed police officers. For a country bitterly divided and eternally at war, his popularity is an unusually unifying factor. Consider that former president and general U Thein Sein, whose term saw the beginning of renewed Myanmar Army offensives on Kuchin Independence Army outposts, once summoned Aung La to visit him in the nation's capital and pose for a photo. Or that countless military officers will tune in to watch the Kachin man's cagematch at the same time as scores of the refugees they've displaced.

"We support him because we are proud of him as a Myanmar MMA fighter," said Myo Lwin, a young Bamar fan who had never watched MMA before Aung La. "We don't care if he is Kachin."

This past March, the fighter parlayed his celebrity status into a charity auction in Yangon, selling old gloves and autographed memorabilia to raise more than US$6,000 for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Kachin . In April, he returned to his birthplace to deliver the goods and visit family he hadn't seen in 14 years.

"When I left I was a teenager," he says. "Now I'm a father. It's almost a whole lifetime."

During the trip, he spent time at the Mai Na IDP camp in Myitkyina, where roughly 2,000 people living on as little as 25 cents per day. The humbled fighter says he was a bit overwhelmed when he arrived and a horde of small children rushed toward him.

"They don't have it as good as us, and it's just nice to know that I was able to help," he says.

Hkawng Dau, a former teacher at the Mai Na camp, said that the way Aung La Nsang supports those in need endears him to the wider Kachin community. He may be Myanmar's national hero, but he's still a Kachin boy.

"He sold his trophies and awards to help the IDPs," Hkawng Dau said. "Since he is our own blood, I want him to be more successful."

Given little time to prepare, Aung La accepted the five-round fight and flew to Jakarta for a 25-minute slugfest.

"Aung is ready to fight anyone at any time," says Jeff Mueller, a fellow instructor at Crazy88. "But taking a fight on ten days' notice, no matter who the opponent is, is a scary proposition for everyone else in your training camp."

The lack of training didn't seem to be a problem through the fight's first two rounds, but after Bigdash landed a hard, high kick to the neck halfway through the third, Aung La struggled to hold himself together. The bigger Russian kept him squeezed in a clinch for most of the final two rounds but could not manage to earn a submission, settling for a unanimous judges' decision victory. Bigdash bloodied Aung La's face so badly that he did not even appear at the decision announcement after the final bell.

Despite his clear defeat, the Myanmar fighter had proved himself a worthy challenge by becoming the first opponent to take Bigdash for a full fight. Setting up a rematch of the two middleweights in Yangon was a no-brainer for ONE Championship, which has not so subtly titled the event "Light of a Nation" to really drive home the drama.

This time, Aung La arrives "in the best shape I've seen him in in years" according to his training partner Mueller. But Bigdash, riding an unbeaten record and the previous victory in January, remains favored to retain the belt.

Dan Hkun Aung, an instructor at Kachinland School of Arts and Sciences in Myitkyina, said this underdog aspect makes the upcoming fight a particularly exciting phenomenon for Kachin people, who have fought throughout their history against traditionally stronger powers, including the British, Japanese, Chinese, and Burmese militaries.

"Last time, Mr. Aung La lost [to Bigdash]," Dan Hkun Aung said. "But this time, it's a bigger challenge—he wants to fight again. It's kind of like a 'never give up' attitude. Aung La represents that Kachin fighting spirit, so people really love it."

Aung La Nsang is well aware of this heritage. He wears the word " Jinghpaw" (the word for Kachin people in their language) tattooed on his back. On either side of the text, wings spread across his shoulders to symbolize freedom for Kachin people.

"I know they can relate to my fighting—Kachin people are always the underdog," he says. "Me taking on the world champion as an underdog is an awesome story they can relate to."