The Guy at the Baltimore Gym is an MMA Superstar

On a recent weekday afternoon, the 31-year-old fighter with the soft brown eyes and the cauliflower ears left the gym outside Baltimore and walked into the nearby sandwich shop. He placed his order, and the man behind the counter asked for his name.

“Aung,” he said softly. “A-U-N-G.”

No one batted an eye, and Aung La N Sang certainly didn’t mind. Just a few weeks earlier, he was back in Burma, his native country, and the scene couldn’t have been more different. Within seconds of stepping off an airplane, they started approaching him. He is known there as the Burmese Python, and they all wanted to shake his hand, to snap photos. Mostly they just wanted to be close to the curious mixed martial arts star.

N Sang attended the country’s top school, which positioned him to travel to the United States for college. He studied agriculture science at Andrews University in Berrien Springs, Mich., and he worked at a dairy farm for all four years of college.

“I think that’s where I got my work ethic from,” he says. 

<<< Read the full story in the Washington Post  or the Myanmar Times>>>