‘While my friends partied, I was at the gym’ – sacrifice pays off for history-making Hong Kong shooter

While his high school classmates were up to their usual teenage hijinks, American-born Hongkonger Max Hunter Leali was busy fulfilling his dream of becoming a lethal mixed martial artist.

“My parents were happy because I was doing that instead of partying and drinking,” recalled the 22-year-old Brazilian jiu-jitsu specialist and professional shooto and muay Thai fighter. “I avoided all that teenage angst because I was at the gym most of the time.”

Leali (with a professional mixed martial arts record of 1-1-1) is fine-tuning his skills ahead of local promotion Just MMA’s event on March 16, where he will fight China’s Cao Zhenhai (3-2-1).

Leali has a wealth of experience in different combat sports, not least of which is the Japanese combat sport of shooto, where his dominance at the 2016 Hong Kong Amateur Shooto tournament caught the eye of legend of the sport Rumina Sato.

“[Sato] invited me to the All Japan Amateur Shooto Championship, where the best amateurs in Japan fight each other. They all won at least one tournament to be there,” said Leali, who was the first ever Hong Kong competitor to feature.

Leali finished third – the first non-Japanese competitor to do so – and recently became Hong Kong’s first professional shooto fighter, having travelled to the renowned Shinjuku for his first pro bout. It ended in a draw.