‘Maybe I was born in Myanmar in another life’: Canadian lethwei fighter Dave Leduc turns Burmese hero
- ‘King of lethwei’ Dave Leduc is a superstar celebrity in Myanmar, mobbed wherever he goes by locals who now see him as one of their own
- The 27-year-old faces biggest fight of his career at Friday’s World Lethwei Championship show on UFC Fight Pass
Traditional lethwei warrior leg tattoos are a dying art for Burmese fighters. For Canadian “King of Lethwei” Dave Leduc, he felt he had no choice but to get them.
“This is the ultimate respect for Myanmar, Now I’ve completed the Myanmar traditional look. I’m a real traditional fighter now,” he told the Post.
“I got the green light from my wife, it’s not fully done. It will be done after the fight,” says undefeated Leduc, who takes on UFC veteran Seth Baczynski for the vacant cruiserweight title at the World Lethwei Championship’s (WLC) King of Nine Limbs show on Friday at the Mandalar Thiri Indoor Stadium in Mandalay. For the first time, lethwei will be streamed globally on UFC Fight Pass, in what is a huge step forward for the sport.
“It was painful. I’ve done 15 hours, I’ve got 15 more to go,” Leduc said of getting the tattoos. “It’s a tradition I wanted to preserve, I think it’s beautiful. The people of Myanmar care about how painful it is. The machine is way more painful than bamboo.
“They don’t care how it’s done, though. We can do it with a hammer or a needle. We’ll see if you make a face. I kinda like that. I’m gonna hurt him [Baczynski] with half of the tats, can you imagine what I’d do with the full tats?”