*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).
At the 2021 U.S. Olympic track trials, Sydney McLaughlin finally outraced Dalilah Muhammad to earn the victory, and the record, that Muhammad kept grabbing whenever they met.
The Tokyo Olympics are not looking like much fun: Not for athletes. Not for fans. And not for the Japanese public.
German soccer clubs are banding together to display rainbow colors during the country’s match against Hungary at the European Championship after UEFA rejected host city Munich’s plan to do the same.
he Supreme Court has decided unanimously that the NCAA cannot enforce rules limiting education-related benefits that colleges offer to student athletes — things like computers and paid internships.
Weightlifter Laurel Hubbard will be the first transgender athlete to compete at the Olympics.
A sharply limited number of fans will be allowed to attend the Tokyo Olympics. The decision announced Monday comes as organizers try to save some of the spirit of the Games where even cheering has been banned.
The trend of removing sponsor bottles at European Championship news conferences was started by Cristiano Ronaldo. UEFA has now asked teams to stop it.
Sports remains one of the last things people are willing to watch live, which is making it lucrative for networks and streamers alike — and leagues are asking them to pay up.
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