*By Conor White*
Cody Garbrandt won the biggest fight of his life in December 2016 when he became the UFC Bantamweight champion.
He was motivated, in part, by the fight his young friend Maddux Maple showed against leukemia.
"He's had such an impact on me," Maple, 11, said of Garbrandt. "He helped me go through cancer, the rough time I was going through, and I don't know what I would do without him."
Garbrandt and Maple met in 2011, when Maple was just five years old and ravaged by the effects of chemotherapy. Garbrandt, who hadn't been signed by the UFC yet, promised Maple he would win a UFC championship belt if Maple beat cancer.
In 2015, Maple's leukemia went into remission.
"I was battling my own demons, and he helped me with a lot of those," Garbrandt said Tuesday in an interview with Cheddar. "Early on, with the decision to chase history, he helped me chase this goal and stay motivated and stay focused on the task at hand and with his battle and what he was able to do, he had a big impact on my life and a was a huge motivating factor in making it to the top."
Garbrandt is telling his and Maple's story in the new book, "The Pact".
With the pact completed and his cancer in remission, is Maddux Maple planning to follow his friend into the octagon?
"No, I actually want to be a childhood cancer doctor," Maple said. "That's what I went through, so I went to help people who go through what I went through."
For the full interview, [click here](https://cheddar.com/videos/the-fight-of-their-lives).
Millions of people around the world are getting ready for the Super Bowl on Sunday. And while the day is all fun and games, there's still a serious discussion happening about player safety. Now, two leading sports brands have teamed up to design new, state-of-the-art equipment using 3D printing. Joe DeSimone, co-founder and CEO of Carbon, stopped by Cheddar with more on how technology is making football more safe, head to toe.
Luke Wilson is taking a short break from Hollywood. A commercial break. The "Rushmore" and "Old School" actor is starring in his first Super Bowl commercial, and he says the 30-second Colgate spot will probably get more views than any of his movies. "I think more people will see this than any movie I've ever been in for sure," Wilson told Cheddar on Friday.
Draftkings CEO Jason Robins told Cheddar that New Jersey residents alone could wager as much as $100 million on the Super Bowl, the first time sports betting will be legal there for the big game.
Although it has 3 million customers, home security company SimpliSafe isn’t a household name yet. It’s hoping that will change on Sunday after its first Super Bowl ad airs.“In a market where people are trying to lock you in a contract or harvest your data, we’re trying to keep you safe,” brand creative director Wade Devers told Cheddar. “There aren’t really a lot of places you can reach the number of people you can reach like the Super Bowl.”
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Friday, Feb. 1, 2019.
On Super Bowl Sunday, the Hallmark Channel will be home to the sixth annual Kitten Bowl, the annual matchup of cat-letes held to benefit the North Shore Animal League. Beth Stern, host of the Kitten Bowl and spokesperson for North Shore (and wife to Howard), brought a pair of 12-week Siamese kittens to Cheddar Thursday to help promote a new event this year: the first-ever Cat Bowl.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Wednesday, Jan. 30, 2019.
Super Bowl Sunday is the ー well ー Super Bowl of building brand awareness, particularly for food and beverage companies. This year, Pepsi and Frito-Lay, both units of PepsiCO ($PEP), are once again among the snack giants planning to use the 100 million-plus members of the expected television audience to launch new products and elevate brands in their respective portfolios. Frito-Lay CMO Jen Saenz spoke to Cheddar Tuesday alongside Greg Lyons, the CMO for Pepsi, which is known for its Super Bowl ads and social media engagement tied to the Big Game.
Apple is planning a subscription service that would function like Netflix for games, according to people familiar with the matter. The iPhone maker has also discussed partnering with developers as a publisher, which could signal ambitions to assume distribution and marketing costs for games.
These are the headlines you Need 2 Know for Tuesday, Jan. 29, 2019.
